My usual diet, and the Veggie-Quinoa Lasagna I ate all week

I've done a lot of blogging lately about other people's food creations. I should mention that mostly I eat my own cooking. For starters, I know what goes into it and I don't have to worry about gluten contamination. Second, it's way more affordable than eating out or eating pre-packaged foods. Third, I generally know I'm either going to like it or I suspect I will like it, given the ingredients. Fourth, it helps me keep a handle on the number of calories I'm taking in. It's really hard to know, for example, how many calories I consumed at Laxmi's on Monday, and since I'm trying to lose a few pounds, I'm paying attention to calories pretty closely these days.

All that said, I tried a new recipe this week -- a GF veggie lasagna. Instead of pasta noodles, I used strips of homegrown zucchini, and I used real dairy cheese and cottage cheese because I'd hoped the boys would try it and like it. It had quinoa as sort of a meat substitute, which I thought was interesting. The boys did try it and ate some, but for them it wasn't a home run. Specifically, they weren't crazy about the quinoa, the zucchini wasn't soft like pasta, and the slices didn't hold together in nice squares and rectangles so it looked a bit of a mess. Jenn liked it okay, but I note that I was the primary consumer of the leftovers all week, which was fine. It was nice to have a fast, easy dinner to heat up for myself while Jenn prepared a more gluten-centric meal for the rest of the family.

The recipe is here: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/11671.  I would do the "zucchini as noodles" thing again, but I might just look for a more traditional lasagna recipe and replace the pasta. I'd also pre-cook the zucchini a bit to soften it up, assuming it would hold together well enough to act like a noodle when the time came to make the layers. Experiment and enjoy!