Perfect Leftovers

Over a year now my husband has not eaten any meat and I for the most part as well.  Finding something new has less to do with the ingredients and more to do with the imagination. Removing meat from a dish only requires 3-4 types of animals (on average), however, the range of vegetables I've seen from some sources to be over 400 varieties.  

So...it's only a matter of imagination and while I love to cook, sometimes what to cook is the most difficult decision. Having cooked meat dishes for so many years, the brain is often scripted to have some type and amount of meat. For example, lasagna. Most would expect when ordering lasagna that their is ground beef. Not in the dish above. I have been meaning to make lasagna in the past few days and today, Greg wanted more of a Ratatouille, so I combined the two. While zucchini was not available, I used egg plant, tomatoes, spinach and mozzarella with a white cream sauce (bechamel sauce)with a  few dashes of basil pesto onto top and your traditional lasagna pasta shells. I'll have to admit this is one of the better lasagna's I've had and definitely made.  

Tip: The eggplant was cut in 5mm then slices and rubbed with salt and lightly fried in olive oil then layered into the lasagna. 

Pasta madness

Probably one of easiest, tastiest and quickest recipes to make is what we call tuna casserole. In the USA, a can of campbell's cream of mushroom soup mixed with can of tuna, 250gr sour cream, salt and spiral noodles and then bake in the oven for 20-30min.  Here in Austria we simply use a package of mushroom soup and make a rather thick broth and had some freshly cooked champions. As well one can top it off with bread crumbs or just graded cheese.  

Chili Outside

Chili con carne as most of you know is with carne, i.e. meat. However, when one does not eat meat, one only needs to replace it with soy and in this case, soy granulate. Quite honestly the taste is almost unrecognizable with this simple change of ingredient, otherwise everything else is as always, an important ingredient to the test and texture.  Our chili is a mix of kidney beans, soy granulate, corn, red(& green or yellow) pepper, tomato juice, chili powder, salz and pepper and most important ingredient, cumin. A great dish for when it's chili outside. 

We like to top off our chili with grated cheddar and a dash or two of sour cream or even greek yogurt. 

Corn bread almost always belongs chili and there are many recipes. It's my experience that most are dry and that's fine if you prefer it so. Our preference is a more moist cornbread, which some recipes might call for almost a cup of oil.  If you not tried honey on cornbread, try it! Cut the bread in half, add a bit of butter and top of with some honey. It's delicious and adds a sweet touch to your chili.