Zucchini Lasagna Recipe

My husband Lulu has become such a garden expert over the years. This morning he harvested over 2 pounds of zebra striped zucchini in our garden, which left me almost speechless. I wasn’t expecting to make a zucchini dish today, but that’s half the fun of having your own vegetable garden!

I decided to prepare a vegetarian zucchini lasagna. The dish consists of three elements: a creamy béchamel sauce, an enormous amount of pan-fried zucchini and my special lasagna sheets from my Haute Potato cookbook. Instead of using regular lasagna pasta sheets, I used homemade gnocchi dough flattened into long thin sheets. When writing Haute Potato, I really tried to think outside the box and came up with a few potato recipes that I believe haven't been created before. If you don't have time, you can always substitute with the store-bought regular lasagna sheets. But if you have time to cook during this long Memorial Day weekend, give my Haute Potato recipe a try; rest assured your efforts will be rewarded.

Mushroom Lasagna Recipe

I just found out September was National Mushroom Month, so to celebrate the occasion, I made one of our family's favorites: vegetarian mushroom lasagna. I used cremini mushrooms, which have the right size and texture for lasagna. Onions and tomato sauce also play an important role in the dish, as of course does the cheesy white sauce. I included soy chorizo to provide some protein and a little kick to the meal. If you’re not a vegetarian, you could of course substitute ground meat in its place.

The layers of the lasagna can be a little soft, so I topped it with a Parmesan and bread mixture. I find this dish to be comfort food at its best: rich, flavorful and bold while still being familiar. Definitely worth the effort!

Beet Lasagna Recipe

If you've been following the meals I've been cooking for my family recently, you've probably noticed the abundance of beets in the dishes. I try my best to make a wide variety of dishes, even though they all revolve around the same ingredient. So this recipe is made with --you guessed it-- beets and beet greens! I sautéed the greens with onions, fresh thyme, tomato paste and a bit of vegetable broth. The taste is very similar to collard greens. Of course, you could always replace the beet greens with collard greens or kale.

To ensure the beet greens were well appreciated, I utilized them in layers of lasagna. The key is to add generous amounts of béchamel sauce and cheese. Prepared this way, all the beet greens and beets were used up and I bet no one even really noticed I had served such large portions of greens!

Quick and Easy Vegetarian Lasagna Recipe

Here's a quick, simple and easy recipe for vegetarian lasagna. I substituted lavash pizza bread for the regular lasagna pasta sheets. Lavash bread can be easily cut, so it's fun to make different shaped lasagna, but perhaps most important, it doesn't need to be precooked! The texture is slightly more firm on the top layer, but as ooey-gooey as one would expect on the inside. It's familiar but at the same time refreshing and new.

I made this dish with my friends from California Lavash. They came to my houseand we cooked up a storm, took pictures, and generally had a blast. Love the product, ladies!

Onion Masala Manicotti Pasta Recipe (+Giveaway)

I came up with this new dish after I received masala marinara pasta sauce from our friend Dave of DavesGourmet.com. This special sauce was the winner of the Sofi Award for outstanding pasta sauce in 2010. The sauce is very creative and definitely has a South Asian flair with hints of ginger, coconut and kaffir lime leaves. It's a must try.

Since the sauce itself is a fusion of cultures, I thought it would be fun to continue the theme and make an Italian pasta dish with Indian flavors. I made Indian-style pearl onions cooked in onion masala sauce, called dopiaza. I used that mixture to flavor manicotti stuffed with ricotta cheese and a generous helping of French triple cream cheese. If that sounds a bit decadent to you, well, it is!

If you're itching to try the sauce I used in this dish, Dave's Gourmet kindly agreed to be a part of our 25 days of giveaways. For a chance at winning, just go to our 25 Days of Giveaways page and enter. We'll announce the winner tomorrow!

Make sure you're a fan of PhamFatale Facebook fan page and Dave's Gourmet or follow @Phamfatalecom and tweet about this giveaway. To make it easy, you can just copy and paste this tweet if you’d like: "Dave's Gourmet Pasta Sauce #HolidayGiveaway from @Phamfatalecom and @DavesGourmet: http://bit.ly/vVk4L8".