This is a very special recipe for us, because I tried it the first time with our first EVER grown from a seed vegetable - a giant zucchini! You can see the comparison from just one month of growth!
Some of you may or may not know that Ryan and I have joined a community garden in Compton. We are SO excited about sowing into that city as well as our soil. ;) haha. There have been some really neat testimonies of how that garden has allowed for gang members to find good work, for prostitutes to come of the street, and for kids to develop a love for vegetables and service.
Anyways, as you can imagine, with our first veggie, we were eager and excited to find an awesome way to eat it!
I asked for suggestions on Intsagram and Facebook, and someone told me to do Zucchini Lasagna. I'd actually never tried it before, but figured it was worth attempting!
This is a very simple recipe. It takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes from start to finish with 40 minutes of chill time while the lasagna bakes. This is a good recipe to prepare in advance, and then have the lasagna ready to bake when you want it. It's also gluten free, grain free, and dairy free. It served 4 people with left overs.
So without further delay, here's what you need and how to make it! We used a homemade pesto, so the recipe for that is there as well. However, any store bought pesto or marinara will work just fine!
Ingredients:
4-5 organic zucchinis (or one giant one from a garden), sliced long ways
2 organic vine tomatoes, sliced
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1 tsp of olive oil
8oz container of white mushrooms, diced
1/2 egg plant, diced
1 lb of Italian turkey or chicken sausage
For the pesto:
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
3 slightly packed cups of basil leaves (usually 3 small containers or 1 large one)
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of pine nuts (I used walnuts because we had them and they're cheaper!)
1/2 tsp of salt
Instructions:
Blend the pesto in a food processor or a blender and set aside.
Saute the onions in olive oil, add the egg plant and mushrooms shortly after. Saute until ALMOST cooked.
While the veggies are cooking, begin cooking the sausage. If it was purchased as links, make sure to decase them and break down into little pieces. Do not cook it ALL the way through.
Set oven to 375F
Using a 9x13 baking pan, begin laying your zucchini across the bottom of the pan
Scoop out some of the pesto and spread it evenly across the zucchini
Add some of the veggies & meat. Top that layer with tomatoes.
Lay another layer of zucchini across the top of what's in the pan. Spread some pesto over the zucchini.
Add some more veggies & meat with another layer of tomatoes.
Repeat this until the pan is full. I've done this a couple times now. You can usually get between 2-3 layers in the pan.
Bake the lasagna for 40 minutes, or until the zucchini is tender. Not too tender, otherwise it won't hold.
Enjoy it with friends!