Healthy Pasta-Less Vegetarian Lasagne

In the words of Britney Spears… Oops! I did it again…

Credit | Fun fact: I had this hairdo for my year 12 formal. I heart Britney.

In March last year I went on a diet because my jeans were too tight.

Now, I no longer wear jeans (I’m all about Black Milk leggings these days), but everything is too tight once again. I’ve regained the lost weight and more these past few months.

One reason for the gain is that I wasn’t clever about my change from meat eater to vegetarian. I simply replaced a lot of my previous protein-rich foods with carbs and fat (because bread and cheese ♥).

The big reason is emotional eating. Being made redundant in May, and subsequently searching for the right job, has had a bigger impact on my emotions than I realised. The past few months my emotions have been up, down, and flat. But mostly down. I stopped exercising. I started to become more hermit-like than usual. I recall a lot of chocolate being consumed during that time.

Of course, eating crap makes you feel crap, and eating crap when you’re already feeling crap is not ideal.

Satine & Isis – good company

So here I am again, on a weight loss plan – because I’ve decided I want to get out of this sad funk, eat healthy but not boring, and even get a bit fit.

That last one will be hard, because I actually hate exercise that makes you sweat and your heart race.

This time I’m following my friend Amanda’s (Daily Dose Fitness) new lifestyle program using the flexible dieting, macro-controlled method, ‘if it fits your macros’. In a nutshell, you can eat anything as long as it fits within your day’s allowance of calories, carbs, protein, and fat.

It’s been one week so far and I’ve already lost some weight and centimetres! This recipe is one of my new favourites, a variation on one of the meals in Amanda’s program. It’s easy to make and has a good hit of protein for vegetarians. Even Paul liked it.

So tell me… What are your secrets for enjoying exercise? 😉

Healthy Pasta-Less Vegetarian Lasagne, or ‘Bake’

Serves 2.
Per serving: 366 calories, 48g protein, 27g carbs, 13g fat

• 200g eggplant
• 200g zucchini
• Olive oil spray
• 300g frozen quorn mince
• 2 cloves garlic
• 200g tinned tomatoes
• 1/2 tsp each of dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, chilli
• Balsamic vinegar
• 50g parmesan, mozzarella, or cheddar cheese
• A bunch of spinach
• 250g light ricotta or cottage cheese
• Fresh nutmeg
• Fresh parsley
• 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Thinly slice the eggplant then place in a single layer on a foil-lined baking tray. Lightly spray with olive oil spray and bake for 20 minutes, turning once.
2. Meanwhile, heat a saucepan to medium heat. Add the frozen quorn mince and crushed garlic, and cook for several minutes, stirring continuously so the quorn doesn’t stick. Add tinned tomatoes, thyme, oregano, marjoram, chilli, salt, pepper, and a generous splash of balsamic vinegar. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Finely chop the parsley and add to a bowl with the cottage cheese or ricotta, the zest of 1 lemon. Finely grate 1/4 of nutmeg and combine well. Spoon half of the quorn and tomato sauce into a small rectangular baking dish, then half the spinach, all of the eggplant and zucchini, then the remaining quorn mix, spinach, and finally top with the ricotta. Grate over the parmesan/mozzarella/or cheddar, then bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Jamie Oliver’s Happy Cow Burgers

I set myself a challenge recently: to cook a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals in 15 minutes.

I’m usually a slow cook, because I get distracted by Satine and Isis, so I wasn’t convinced that I’d be able to cook this meal in 15 minutes. Hell, it takes me over 30 minutes just to chop all the ingredients for a vegetarian lasagna.

Jamie Oliver’s Happy Cow Burgers (so named because they contain no cows, I assume) are a spicy vegetarian broad bean and mixed bean burger patty packed full of flavour thanks to cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander and lemon zest. They’re low in fat and very filling too. The coleslaw uses fat-free natural yoghurt instead of mayo, which makes it healthy, fresh and light. The recipe in the cookbook also includes corn on the cob, but I excluded it as a bread roll, burger patty and coleslaw is enough food for one meal for me (the corn section of the recipe would only take a couple of minutes anyway, so I wasn’t really cheating 😉 ).

So, how did I go in my self-set challenge?

Quorn Vegetarian San Choy Bow

Since becoming a vegetarian, the most common questions I’ve been asked are ‘Do you miss meat yet?’, ‘But don’t you want a steak?’, and ‘What about seafood, are you eating that?’.

My answer? No.

Surprisingly, to me, I still haven’t missed meat, nor have I felt deprived in any way.

It has been seven weeks now, and in that time there has only been one occasion where I’ve thought ‘Gah, that meat smells so good!’. It was last Sunday. Paul had roasted a pork loin and my ears were filled with the sweet sound of crunchy crackling as he ate it… So I fried myself some tofu coated in a salty seasoning mix. It hit the spot.

My No-Recipe Tomato-Based Sauce Recipe

The chickpea, fetta and olive oil drizzle variation

I’m usually all about recipes and precise measurements when cooking. That’s why I get so much enjoyment out of baking. I like things to be just so.

Though when it comes to standard, regular meals at our place, I rarely follow a recipe. The dinners I cook are pretty simple, repetitive, even boring – but I like it. It might be BBQ meat with salad, or grilled meat and roasted or steamed vegetables, or my favourite, an omelette.

Another favourite is this sauce that I make every couple of weeks with the intention of freezing it in portions (the reality is it gets eaten within a couple of days). It’s full of veggies, healthy AND tasty.

This sauce is different every time I make it. Sometimes I add more vegetables, or less vegetables, depending on what is in the fridge. Sometimes I add chickpeas and eat it with rice. Sometimes I add beef mince and eat it with pasta. It’s also great served over grilled chicken breast and vegetables.

My New BFFs: Quinoa and Brown Rice

In my experience, food memories can have such a lasting impact that a negative first tasting can put a food on my black list forever. For example, I cannot stand the mere smell of Black Sambuca, thanks to an awful experience with the hideous drink at my Year 12 formal after-party. I still loathe liquorice to this day.

Less traumatising, but still an unpleasant memory, was the first time I cooked quinoa. A couple of years ago my friends Amanda and Nat were constantly raving about quinoa (pronounced keen-wa, like Joaquin [Phoenix] backwards). I eventually caved in to peer pressure and tried it myself. It was awful. It smelt like dirt, had an unusual texture, and seemed like an all-round lousy substitute for my usual buttery couscous.

Another unpleasant memory is the time, not long after moving out of home, in which I tried to cook plain white rice. One of my beloved pink saucepans was destroyed by a thick black coating of burnt rice. After a few more unsuccessful gluggy rice-cooking attempts I permanently delegated the cooking of rice to Paul.