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My daughter said once that we have lots of adventures...so grew New Leaf Nickie, the blog intended to capture most of our adventures. If you've landed here, welcome to life with New Leaf Nickie on Havoc Hill Farm.







Thursday, January 14, 2010

Mexi-Lasagna

I haven't really been keeping up with my "pantry meals," because they've been sort of boring...spaghetti....chicken noodle soup....  BUT, tonight I made a YUMMY meal that I feel I need to share.  I read a recipe for Mexican Lasagna, but I didn't write it down.  So, tonight, I just decided to make due with what I had.  So, here's what I had...
1 package of Meal Starters "crumbles"
1 jar salsa
1 can refried beans
1 package Cottage Cheese
lasanga noodles
shredded mexi and cheddar cheese

Let me start by reminding you I'm a 95% vegetarian...(I do still eat a little dairy and our very own farm fresh, vegetarian fed, laid-in-my-barn eggs)...but my kids aren't, so I have to find the medium for our meals, but I had to fix and eat something that the kids would eat too, I was just VERY light on the cheese.  You can easily substitute ground beef for the veggie "meat".  Also, I don't usually follow a "recipe" per se.  I usually just wing it.  Whatever looks and tastes good goes in. 

I don't like precooking lasagna noodles and I read once to just soak them in hot water while you are fixing everything else, so that's what I did.  Just dropped them in a pitcher of hot water while everything else was cooking. 

Then I threw the Meal Starters, the salsa and the refried beans in a large pot and heated it all up.  After it was hot, I took it off the stove and added the cottage cheese.  I decided to make two 8x8's instead of one 9x13, so I had to break my noodles so that they would fit in the pans.  I just started assembling the lasagna pans like usual...meat, noodles, meat, cheese, noodles, meat, cheese, noodles, meat & cheese.  I covered with foil, baked at 350 for 30 minutes, removed the foil and baked for another 5 minutes or so.  This is what I ended up with...

 
I knew I was up against the wall when it came to the kids actually eating it...neither one really likes lasagna and I had to convince them that this wouldn't taste like any other lasagna they'd EVER tasted considering it was Mexican.  Here's what I got!
Look at that clean plate!!!!



They ate it!  Although Kaden got distracted by the camera and his fell off his fork mid-bite, he ate it!  It was very good and so, so easy!  And, the good news is I have half of one pan left for work lunches next week and...are you reading this Joe?...one for Joe to take back to work with him after the weekend!  

I hope everyone tries this recipe.  You can totally adjust it to your taste.  If you do try it, let me know via comment how yours turned out!

NLN

3 comments:

  1. sounds good, always trying to find good easy meals! Not sure why, but I like to follow blogs, I started one last year, but I enjoy reading them more than writing them! haha

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  2. I made the Mexican lasagna and wrote about it on my blog. I plugged your page in on there, too. It was pretty good. I might try tweaking a bit the next time but Kanin ate it and that is definitely a plus.

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