As demanded -- details on the "Thai" lasagna

For dinner tonight, I did what I've thought of doing a number of times, but kept not following through on: I made a lasagna with a peanut sauce, inspired by Thai dishes I've eaten. It didn't work out quite the same as other lasagnas I've done, as I usually depend on the liquid in the sauce to cook the noodles while the lasagna bakes, but the amount of the sauce and the nature of it meant that there wasn't enough; however, pouring a little water in the sauce that collected around the edge and putting some foil over it part way through baking seemed to solve the problem just fine.

I don't have measurements for much of anything I put in, as I wasn't working from a recipe, and was making it up as I went along.

Sauce:
- the white part of a bunch of green onions, sliced
- a couple inches of the stems from a bunch of cilantro, chopped (cilantro leaves should work ok, too, but Mark had used some, and I wanted to save some for something else)

Saute the green onions and cilantro stems in a little bit of peanut oil in a small pan. Add:
- soy sauce
- a splash of rice vinegar
- dried basil and lemongrass, depending on preferences

Add enough of the liquid to cover the bottom of the pan, but not quite enough to cover the onions and cilantro. Simmer for a couple minutes. Add:
- natural peanut butter

I added the last of the peanut butter we had. I think it was more than a half cup, but less than a cup. Stir the peanut and soy sauce mixture as the peanut butter melts. Add skim milk to thin out the peanut-soy-seasoning taste and make a nice pourable sauce. I probably would have used some coconut milk if we had it, diluted with skim milk.

Cheese:
I mixed about 2/3 of a large container of cottage cheese with two eggs, and sprinkled in some dried lemongrass and dried galangal. Ginger probably would have worked just fine.

Veggies:
I used shredded carrot, about 2/3 of a bag of "broccoli slaw", and a bag of pea pods (sliced to make more bite-sized pieces). I'd probably go a little easier on the broccoli slaw if I were to do it again; the final result was tasty, but I think the veggie to cheese and sauce ratio was a little high.

I was trying to decide what kind of cheese to put on top still when I put it in the oven, so there wasn't any. After it baked for a while, I poured some of the sauce that collected around the side of the lasagna over the top; it had started to thicken, so it stayed there a bit better than at first. As I mentioned, I needed to add some water around the sides to help the noodles cook; next time I make a sauce like that I'll remember that might be necessary.

I thought it turned out ok. Mark seemed to like it, as he not only said he did, but he also ate more pieces of it than he usually does for the dinner when I first serve a lasagna. So, definitely a repeat.


Updated:

I'd forgotten that I'd done a similar lasagna before, but Monica remembered me sharing about it elsewhere. I did, and here's a summary of the differences:

Sauce:
This lasagna's sauce was a peanut sauce with a little cilantro. The other one was a cilantro sauce with a little peanut; it also had more rice vinegar, and coconut milk and crushed red pepper.

Cheese:
The cheese layers for this one were made from cottage cheese and egg. The other one used ricotta. Both had lemongrass and galangal.

Veggies:
The veggies for this one were broccoli, carrots, and pea pods. The other one had a bag of frozen three pepper and onion blend.

Top:
This one had no cheese on top. The other had a gouda we needed to find a use for.

Now that I remember making that other one, I remember it being good. It was definitely different from this one, even though it was similar thoughts that brought both about. I'm amused that the lemongrass and galangal in the cheese layer seems to be a constant for me.

Another food post

I made another lasagna a few weeks after the last one I posted about. For that one, I went a little more "normal" with it -- a tomato sauce with ricotta and mozzarella (or maybe an "Italian" blend of cheese) on top. Veggies were peppers and onions. Still vegetarian. (It's been years since I've cooked meat. Eat it on occasion still, but haven't cooked any in quite a while.)

Being me, I couldn't just have everything be straight from the container. For the sauce, I used our usual tomato-sauce base -- we never use it straight from the jar as-is -- for a vodka sauce. When I've previously made a vodka sauce, it's been a "cream" sauce ("cream" is in quote b/c I use fat-free dairy instead), but this time I didn't add any dairy to the sauce. (We never drink vodka -- preferring drinks made with rum, and not really drinking much of those to begin with -- but we have gone through one bottle and most of a second since I first made a vodka cream sauce.)

It was apparently a hit. Mark said it was probably the best lasagna I've made to date.

I started preparing parts for tonight's "lasagna" (which is going to be an enchilada torte) before Mark got up, so he woke up to food smells coming from the kitchen. It's good that he thinks they're good ones.

I'm turning that same tomato-sauce base into a mole, and I've seasoned some TVP based on a chorizo recipe. Instead of cheese layers, I'm going to have some refried beans. Veggies will again be peppers and onions.

We'll see how it turns out.