One of the most challenging things about returning home from travel is coming home to an empty refrigerator and wondering what to make for dinner. I try never to let that happen. We are going to the beach in the next couple of weeks, so I built some time into my meal prep schedule to prepare our return home dinner and pop it in the freezer. I am lucky to have my awesome Mom nearby who will take care of our house while we are away and she can take it out of the freezer a couple of days before we return. If you don’t have that luxury, you can fully cook this recipe and freeze it in batches to reheat when you return home.
When a meal calls for a sauce, I take that as a perfect opportunity to get as many veggies into my family as possible. For this lasagna, I used white eggplant, purple eggplant, zucchini, red onion, garlic, apple, yellow squash, carrots, okra, tomatoes, green bell, and banana pepper.
The boys are home from school and it was a bit chaotic during the construction of this sauce so I don’t have any midpoint photos. But, I’ll describe… I steamed the eggplant, half of the onion, okra, carrots, and squash until tender. Then, I pureed them along with the raw apple, zucchini, bell pepper, and tomato. Presto! Sauce! It was lighter in color and not at all like marinara sauce in texture. But, it was super tasty!
For the meat, I used two pounds of my organ meat grind that I get from Whole Foods. It is 2 parts pastured beef heart, 1 part liver, 1 part kidney, and 1 part ground beef. I also used 1 pound of pastured ground pork from South Chestnut Farm. I sautéed the garlic and banana pepper in coconut oil and then added the meat. I added fresh parsley and basil from the garden for flavor.
For the cheese layer, I used raw cottage cheese and raw mozzarella from Miller’s Organic Farm. I also added more raw garlic and parsley. You could totally leave this layer out but, the hubs really likes it…so I added it in.
The gluten free lasagna noodles are from Thrive Market and work really well to add some “lasagnaness” to this modified recipe. I only add 8 noodles total for this huge recipe!!
I also added raw white mushrooms. I left them raw to add moisture and help cook the noodles when I bake the dish.
I finished with a light sprinkling of more raw mozzarella. If you were going to make this for dinner tonight, pop it in the oven covered at 375F for one hour then uncover for 15 minutes. Otherwise, freeze it as is and use it later!
I hope you enjoy this sneaky version of lasagna!
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