Pre-Boston Weekly Meals

I was at it again the week I headed to Boston.  I am on a roll and I managed to cook dinner two nights in a row, and then divided up the leftovers for Ryan while I was away.

My first recipe stems from seeing this in the recent Cooking Light magazine.  But then I had a this thought that I had just seen this same recipe somewhere.  Ok, they were similar, and not entirely the same, but the idea was polenta with sausage and mushrooms.

 

Since I do not eat sausage, I decided to use the Morningstar Farms crumbles instead. 

Here is what it looks like in the Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

I started by slicing up my mushrooms.

Then it was time to experiment for the very first time with polenta.  The directions seemed easy so I just went for it.

Like I said, I have never made polenta before, so this was quite the experience.

In the meantime, I got the sauce going with the soy crumbles, tomatoes, mushrooms and seasonings.

All the while I was still stirring my polenta, which was going somewhat crazy because our stove either does too much or too little on the flame.

I was pleased with the polenta, and plated it up to serve for dinner.  So, what do you think?  Does it look like the picture from the cookbook?

I really liked this and would like to do more with polenta in the future.

The very next night I made a Mexican Lasagna, which I found in the Vegetarian Times Low Fat and Fast cookbook.

 

I started out chopping up my onions and pepper.

I went with pinto beans, although the menu lists pinto or black.

I used up some of my frozen corn, too.

Look at that!  This is what becomes the lasagna filling.

To make the lasagna, corn tortillas become like the noodles.

Then I added my filling.

Next came a surprising ingredient: cottage cheese.

This was then topped with some shredded cheddar, and then the layers repeated.

This went in the oven for about 20 minutes.

This was a huge hit and I will definitely be making this dish again.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever made polenta?  Have you ever had a Mexican lasagna?