Vegetarian Meals Day…Uh…Whatever- Mexican Lasagna

Yes I’ve lost count and I’m too lazy to go back and look it up.

Using one of the brilliant Larissa Ione’s recipes again (this time from The Write Ingredients cookbook, which by the way is full of awesome recipes and is a charity cookbook, so please go buy it!), I made Mexican Lasagne.

Let me explain the photo. By the time I pulled this out of the oven, Biker Dude and I were starving. And it smelled so good. I spooned it out onto our plates and thought….shit…I forgot to take a picture. So the photo is kind of cut off because I’d already cut into the lasagne. Sorry. We were hungry. :giggle:

lasagne

This lasagna was fabulous! We loved it, so much that we ate it two days in a row. Yummm.

Mexican Lasagne

Ingredients

4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2-12 uncooked lasagne noodles
1/2 lb hamburger (I used Boca crumbles, which is a soy meat substitute. So if you’re not cooking vegetarian, this is still a yummy meal to make for your family and you can just use hamburger. Though I have to say the Boca crumbles tasted just like hamburger)
1 can black beans
1 onion, chopped (I used half an onion but I’m not big on over-onioning things.)
3 cups salsa
1 cup water
Small clan sliced black olives
Sour cream (optional)

Directions:

Cook hamburger, drain (Note that the Boca crumbles are already cooked, so I just tossed them right from the freezer into the skillet to warm them up). Add onion and cook until onions are tender. Stir in salsa, water, beans and 1 cup of cheese.

Spread 1/4 of sauce in bottom of greased 13 x 9 pan. Layer noodles, sauce mixture, and cheese. Repeat, ending with sauce and cheese. Sprinkle with olives.

Cover with foil, bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove cover and bake another 20 minutes. Serve with sour cream, if desired.

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So here’s where I talk about our week of Vegetarian eating. Biker Dude and I were frankly surprised at how well this worked out. We thought we’d miss meat, at least a little. We didn’t–at all. Not once did we want to rush to McDonald’s for a hamburger. In fact, the thought of it right now is kind of nauseating :giggle:

I thought he’d go eat some meaty meals for lunch. He didn’t. Not once. We went to the Hard Rock Casino last night and ate dinner at one of the restaurants there. We each had a salad, then we split cheese fries, and asked them to leave the bacon off. Another total vegetarian meal. Yay for us!

We’ve also decided to eat vegetarian meals at least a couple times a week from now on because we found this so easy and found so many great recipes. We also didn’t feel so heavy and weighed down this week. We’re also going to cut back on the amount of red meat we eat (which has been a lot) to once a week and try to eat more turkey and chicken. So I’d call this week’s experimentation a huge success. And thanks to those of you who offered up recipes. I really appreciate it. :heart: