Veggie Lasagna with Fresh Marinara: We drank, we cooked, we tried it once more

Megan and I are neighbors. She lives upstairs, I live down. We are full of bad ideas, but this one might be good. Neither one of us was ever good at cooking until something happened. If you're looking for a magical something, stop, we don't know what it was. Last night, while drinking wine, we decided we should share our vegetarian goodies with all of our friends. So here it goes.

This weekend, Megan and I opted for both cooking and baking. It was an Italian theme I guess you might say. I was downstairs making vegetarian lasagna with roasted red peppers and homemade marinara while Megan was upstairs making delicious Gnocchi from scratch (minus the fact the potatoes came from a box). After a delicious dinner, we made cupcakes, Pink Lemonade and Strawberry. By this time we had probably had too much to drink and the icing turned out to be a disaster. Have no fear, we opted for icing on Sunday, sans wine. Megan will post the cupcake pictures.


Vegetarian Lasagna (as found in Velocity)

Cook 9 Lasagna Noodles, set aside

Rub 4 large red peppers with olive oil, roast at 400 for 20 min. turning once, cool 5 min. Place peppers in sealed paper bag for 5 min. Be careful, these suckers are hot, but have no fear if you drop one, you're going to pull the skin off. Remove. Scrape away skin and seeds.

In an 8"x12"x2" baking dish, or whatever size you happen to have, layer as follows.

2 cups marinara sauce, recipe to follow.
3 noodles
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1 peeled, 1/2" sliced eggplant
3 noodles
1 8oz package spinach, cooked and drained
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 noodles
1 cup shredded mozzarella
roasted peppers

Cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and top with shredded mozzarella and crumbled feta cheese. Return to oven and bake uncovered for 30min.

Serves 6-8. What you don't eat you can freeze, make those Lean Cuisine co workers of yours jealous.


Marinara Sauce:

1/2 cup white wine
1 onion chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 tbs Italian herb
1 tbs apple juice
1/4 tsp black pepper

Poor 1 large glass of wine in glass and drink while preparing.

Heat wine in large pot, add the onion and garlic and cook until soft (5 or so min.)
Add the remaining ingredients. Simmer 20 minutes. Freeze what you can't use.