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A Vegetarian Lasagna Recipe To Satisfy Your Hunger

by Jane Simmers


Looking into trying out a vegetarian diet and worried that there might not be any tasty recipes to satisfy your palate? Well, you may be surprised to find out that anything that you can cook with meat can be cooked with vegetables. This even includes your Italian favorites like pizza and pasta. So before you give up on trying to be a vegetarian, look into this vegetarian lasagna recipe first and see if it works for you.



Step 1



This step is all about the ingredients. This vegetarian lasagna recipe requires these following things: one fresh eggplant, frozen spinach, lasagna noodles, low-fat cottage cheese, meatless sauce, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and parsley flakes. The healthier cheeses you use in this dish, the better. All the ingredients in this list can be found at your local grocery store.



Step 2



Now you need to defrost the spinach. When doing this, chances are that it will be wet and messy but you have to get rid of all the moisture so drain as much water as you can. You can use some kitchen utensils or even dry cloth to help you get rid of the water in the spinach which is needed in the vegetarian lasagna recipe.



Step 3



The eggplant needs to be prepared and cut in to thin pieces. Make sure that you make them into slices that will not slow down the cooking process. Lay these slices on a cloth and add a little salt. Place another cloth on top of the first salted layer and then repeat what you did with the remaining slices.



Step 4



Paying attention to cooking this vegetarian lasagna recipe is important. You will need to heat a cookie sheet and on top of that, place a heavy pan to evenly distribute the heat. This is what you will use to cook the lasagna noodles until they are soft enough. To make things easier, you can start mixing the cheese, spinach, pepper and salt in a bowl while the noodles are cooking.



Step 5



This is probably the most difficult part in cooking your vegetarian lasagna recipe. You will need a casserole pan that has sauce spread out evenly inside it. Then add a layer of the lasagna noodles that you just cooked with another layer of eggplant, some sauce, cottage cheese, the mix of spinach that you made, and then top it off with one more layer of lasagna noodles. Do this again until you are satisfied with the thickness of your lasagna.



Step 6



Now for the best part because it's the easiest. To finalize your pasta, add mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and some tomato slices. Then add parsley flakes for more flavor and color.



This vegetarian lasagna recipe needs to be baked and you will need to prepare your oven at about 350 degrees. Place the dish inside the oven for about an hour or until you notice that the eggplant is brown and soft because this will mean that you can now eat it. You can't go wrong with this simple vegetarian lasagna recipe dish.



On the hunt for tasty vegetarian recipes for your vegetarian diet? Find only the best ones at Vegetarianrant.com!





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The French Fry: Weapon of Mass Destruction?

By
renfield

Americans have their French fries, the British have their chips, Latin America has its papas fritas, and the French have their pommes-frites.



We love them. The potato, that most ubiquitous and perennially popular vegetable, is simply sliced into strips and deep fried. The fast food chains have managed to create total consistency so that fries at a McDonalds in Kalamazoo are identical with those offered in San Francisco, Atlanta, Moscow, or Madrid. They are the ultimate finger food, easily consumed behind the wheel, standing in the subway, or walking down the street. Some of us choose to add ketchup, or vinegar, or salsa, but they also taste great just as they are.



The civilized world has a giant addiction to the lowly tuber. It is hard to conceive of the centuries of eating that took place before potatoes were brought back to Europe from the New World and became a staple of every country's cuisine. What did the poor eat before potatoes made their appearance? Bread? Grains? Vegetables?



The advent of the potato changed our diets forever. It was easy to grow, plentiful, and cheap. The flavor was mild, marrying well with almost anything we chose to eat with it. Its texture changed depending upon how it was prepared. And how many ways we invented to cut it, cook it, and use it with every meal imaginable!



We baked it in its skin or roasted it in bite-sized pieces. We boiled it whole or mashed it into a creamy mush. We grated it and fried it for breakfast. We made soup of it and made it a key ingredient in stews. We made pancakes out of it. We sliced it, riced, it, and diced it. We put it into bread, rolled it into dough, and created America's favorite snack, the potato chip.



But the masterpiece that captured us all was deep frying it. Thick, country-style chips, shoe strings, curly and spicy -we loved them all: golden and crisp and perfect.



French fries now make up 25% of our children's intake of vegetables. Fast food nutritionists attempted to substitute healthier alternatives which were peremptorily dismissed by the majority of their customers. Fries remain the accompaniment of choice for all fast food: burgers, hot dogs, chicken, fish, roast beef, and ribs. We simply cannot get enough and never, ever, seem to tire of the little crunches of pleasure.



The innocuous potato, relatively low in calories and packing its fair share of vitamins and minerals, has been transformed into a culinary weapon of mass destruction. Disfigured by saturated fat into a caloric and artery-hardening horror, the French fry may be the deadliest peril we face on a daily basis.



Just a few orders of fries a week can increase our weight by ten pounds a year! Over a decade, that's a hundred pounds, over a lifetime, an awe-inspiring figure. With 60% of us overweight, half of that figure actually obese, we must look to our dietary intake to find the cause. As diabetes and other weight-related conditions mushroom, we know in our hearts that lifestyle changes are needed.



We go on diet regimens, drink liquid meals, fast, cut out sauces, and have our stomachs stapled. We join gyms, buy home exercise equipment, and follow along with television fitness shows. We blame the additives in our food, the hormones in our meat, and the fat in our salad dressings. We forsake the carbohydrates and sugars that our bodies can't process and opt for high fiber breads and low fat milk.



We refuse to believe, because we don't want to believe, that a seemingly harmless, crisp little addition to our meal can pack such a lethal wallop.



"But I just nibble a few," you wail, "And not every day." It's not the single meal intake that leads to an explosion. It's the cumulative total, day after day, year after year, that plants the time bomb within our system. It is the additive effect of repetitive use that eventually reaches critical mass and our physiology implodes.



Imagine, if you will, that not one fry was sold or eaten over the course of a year, anywhere in the United States. With just that change alone, the collective national weight loss could exceed a billion pounds!



The poor potato is ill-equipped to perform as a deadly weapon. It offers us enjoyment and variety and taste and health. But we have taken its honest goodness and distorted it into a slow killer. With every bend of our elbow to pop its sweet flavor into our mouths, we lay down fat on our hips, our stomachs, our arteries, and our pancreas.



Let's save ourselves and save the potato. Much as we hate to admit it, the French fry is something that has to go, before we do.

Dr. Bola is a psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic, specializing in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. She is the author of a psychology-based workbook for permanent weight control. Reach her at: http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

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Nutrition - Meat. It's What's For Dinner!

Submitted by: Tracie

This series of articles has been taking a look at nutrition, and any look at nutrition just wouldn't be complete without examining meat. Long considered the ultimate staple of the American diet (meat and potatoes anyone?), meat is the usually the centerpiece of our meal.

High in iron, zinc and protein, meat is important (or should be important) to all of us. The question is, what kind of meat is healthiest and which is most affordable?Some meats are simply too high in saturated fat for regular consumption. Examples include most beef steaks, fatty pork chops, and of course the traditional breakfast meats (sausage and bacon). There are, however, quite a few meats that deliver all the good nutrition we seek without loading us down with artery-clogging fat.

CHICKEN: Hands down, the best choice for healthy and affordable meat is that old favorite the chicken. Choosing white meat portions (breast) will significantly reduce our fat intake. Chicken breast is one of the primary foods of bodybuilders, some of the healthiest people on the planet. The most economical way to purchase chicken breast is usually to buy the bags of flash-frozen fillets; these can be found for $1.49 to $1.99 per pound.

A boneless skinless chicken breast (3 oz. serving) delivers only 3 grams of fat (5% of RDA) and 0.86 grams of saturated fat (4% of RDA). That's about 1/2 the fat in even the leanest cuts of beef! Be aware, however, that the 'dark' meat on a chicken is not nearly as healthy as the breast - a boneless skinless chicken thigh has 9.2 grams of total fat and 2.6 grams of saturated fat. That's triple what we find in the chicken breast.

A good way to incorporate more chicken into our diet is to substitute skinless ground chicken for ground beef. When used in a recipe (tacos, spaghetti, etc.) it's hard to tell the difference, and the health benefits are huge. Be sure to look for skinless ground chicken though, because if the package doesn't say skinless then it's guaranteed to be high in fat.

Finally, don't forget about that popular chicken alternative: the turkey. It's not just for Thanksgiving anymore!BEEF:Beef. It's what's for dinner. Many of us just couldn't imagine going without our daily beef serving, but have we considered the cost to our health? It's all too tempting to save some money and buy the 'high fat' ground beef instead of the leanest. It's also true that the fattiest cuts are the least expensive (chuck is a great example).

But beef doesn't have to aid our expanding waistline! Take the time to compare nutrition facts on the different cuts, which you can get from your butcher or from beef.org. One of the healthiest cuts of beef is the flank steak which, when prepared correctly, is absolutely delicious! Top round is also quite low in fat, although it tends to get tough when served as a steak.

Love burgers? A great way to enjoy healthy and tasty ground beef is to purchase a top round roast and ask the butcher to grind it into ground beef (make sure he or she trims off the excess fat first). If you have trouble making this grind 'stick', try adding a raw egg to the mixture before forming into hamburger patties.When shopping for beef, look for the words 'round' or 'loin' in the name of the cut. Eye of round roast, for example, boasts only 4 grams of total fat and 1.4 grams of saturated fat. Don't be afraid to ask the butcher to trim off some of the excess fat - most grocery stores will do this for free.

PORK: No other meat has been transformed into such 'fatty' variations, from sausage to bacon to salami. For those of us who are pork lovers, however, there is hope! It is possible to buy lean(er) cuts of pork!The tenderloin is the leanest cut of pork: a 3-ounce serving contains 139 calories and 4.1 grams of fat, which is roughly comparable to a skinless chicken breast. Other lean cuts (based on a 3-ounce serving) include boneless loin roast with 165 calories and 6.1 grams of fat; boneless sirloin chops with 164 calories and 5.7 grams of fat; boneless loin chops with 173 calories and 6.6 grams of fat, and boneless ham (extra lean) with 123 calories and 4.7 grams of fat. A 2-ounce serving of Canadian-style bacon contains 86 calories and 3.9 grams of fat.

FISH: In the lean meats contest, fish is hands-down the undisputed winner. Unlike the fats in most 'meat with feet', the fats we find in fish are primarily the healthy omega fats.Although there are literally hundreds of different ways to buy and prepare fish, many of us find fresh fish to be expensive. Halibut, swordfish, shark and others start at $8.99 per pound. It is possible, however, to buy fish without 'breaking the bank'.

Look for salmon on sale, and consider buying the whole fish to save money. It's not unusual to find quality salmon for $2.99 or less per pound - which is less expensive than the leanest cuts of beef.

Of course, canned fish is typically very inexpensive and delivers a powerful nutritional punch. Consider, for example, canned tuna fish. One can of tuna provides 32.5 grams of protein and only 2.5 grams of fat. Even better, that same can of tuna has zero grams of saturated fat. Talk about a wonder-food! Look for canned tuna on sale, when it's possible to stock up the pantry at 4 cans for $1.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The bottom line is that we can all enjoy meat without adding to our own 'bottom' line. Take the time to learn which cuts are the leanest, look for them on sale, and stock up when the price is right.We'll see you at the butcher counter!

About Author: Tracie Johanson is the founder of Pick Up The Pace, a 30-minute exercise studio for women focusing on fitness, health and nutrition for maximum weight loss. Please visit http://www.letspickupthepace.com/ for more information.

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