Dairy Free Friday

First things first, Happy Friday! Do you remember my blogging training partner, Amber? Well she got engaged last night!!! I totally clapped my hands and grinned ear to ear when she bbm'd me to share her exciting news! Hop over to her blog, check out her bling, and wish her congrats !! I am so excited for her and Eric!

So it's been just over a week since I removed dairy from my diet. I am going to try this for 4-6 weeks to see if it helps my skin at all. I realize that I am sort of 'grasping at straws' at this point, but I want to try one last thing before resorting to trying Accutane. I had my follow up appointment with my Dermatologist last week. While my skin has improved over the past 3 months, it's still not great but he suggested we give it another month. We did discuss my concerns with Accutane and I do feel better after having that conversation. If things aren't better next month, I'll have to give Accutane a try. We'll see how the next month goes.

Removing dairy has actually not been too bad. I am sure that I will miss cheese eventually but so far, the adjustment has not been bad at all! It's been fun to research recipes and come up with tasty dairy free & gluten free options. Luckily there are a lot of great vegan blogs out there to help!

The first recipe I'd like to share comes from the blog, Peas and Thank You (clever blog name, right?). After hearing Amber rave about it, I made her Zucchini Quinoa Lasagna. It did not disappoint!

Ingredients:
- 2 zucchini, cut into 12 thin, 1/4" thick slices
- salt
- 1 c. quinoa, rinsed
- 2 c. vegetable broth
- 1/2 c. tomato sauce
- 1/4 c. minced onion
- 1 t. dried oregano
- 1/4 c. fresh basil, chopped
- 1/4 c. fresh parsley, chopped
- 2 T. organic or non-dairy cream cheese (optional - I did not include this)
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 jar organic marinara sauce
- 1/2 c. organic or non-dairy cheese, i.e. Daiya (option - I used Daiya)

First, cut the zucchini into strips - these will serve as the "noodles". Place "noodles" in a colander and sprinkle with salt, layering paper towels between the noodles. I do not really understand why this happens, but when you sprinkle them with salt, I think it takes the moisture out of the zucchini because it will start to look like you had wet the zucchini with water? Who knows. Set aside and let the salt work it's magic.

Next, combine the quinoa, vegetable broth, tomato sauce, onion, and oregano.

Bring this to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes (or until all of the liquid has been absorbed). Then add in the chopped herbs (and the cream cheese if you are using that ingredient) and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Honestly, you could stop at this point if you wanted to and just eat a bowl of this quinoa mixture. It is SO good. But I resisted the urge to curl up with a bowl of this and proceeded with the recipes...

Spread some marinara in the bottom of an 8 x 8 baking dish. Pat the noodles dry with a towel to remove the salt and moisture. Layer 4 noodles on top of the marinara (I had an extra noodle so this layer had 5).

Spread 1/2 of the quinoa mixture over the noodles.

Top this with marinara and repeat with another layer of zucchini, the other 1/2 of the quinoa mix, and more marinara. Add one more layer of zucchini, then the rest of the marinara, and top with cheese (if you are using it).

And voila!

Bake @ 400F for 30 minutes.

Yum. It was really good. I used a spicy arrabiata marinara sauce so mine had a little kick to it. I think I would also add in some crushed red pepper next time because that is how I roll.

My first vegan recipe was a total success! You could obviously modify this & use real cheese if you wanted to. I don't even think that top layer of cheese is necessary, but I was surprised to find that vegan cheese actually tasted pretty good! I'll definitely make this again!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!