The good, the bad, and the silly.

Until yesterday, I had never made (or even tasted) stuffed peppers. I forgot to mention that. Until today, I had never made lasagna. Meaty or veggie. I've eaten both, but we're not big on Italian and I strongly dislike the texture of ricotta cheese, so it's not something I would normally make.

"Veggie Lasagna" (6 quart pot)

~12 lasagna noodles, uncooked
~1/4 cup water
~1 can (4 oz) mushroom pieces, drained
~1/2 cup shredded carrots (2 large carrots)
~1/2 cup shredded zucchini
~2 jars (24 oz each) chunky vegetable spaghetti sauce (I used Newman's garlic)
~15 oz ricotta cheese
~2 cups grated mozzarella cheese

Grease crock pot.
Break 4 noodles to fit bottom of crock pot.
Sprinkle 1/2 mushrooms, 1/2 carrots, and 1/2 zucchini over the noodles.
Layer 1/3 sauce, 1/2 water, 1/2 ricotta, and 1/3 mozzarella over top.
Add another layer of noodles and second 1/2 of mushrooms, 1/2 half of carrots, and 1/2 half of zucchini.
Spread second 1/3 of sauce, remaining water and ricotta on top.
Sprinkle another 1/3 of mozzarella.
Layer remaining noodles, sauce, and mozzarella.

Cover and cook on low for 4.5 hours. Do not cook for more than 5 hours.

10 servings.

This came out perfectly. I was a little worried because it was the first dish I'd found that used UNcooked noodles. It made a ton and I knew that it would, so I'm REALLY glad I made this early in the week because we have lots of leftovers. My other half says he'd put this in his top 6.

When I wrote down my grocery list, I didn't write down how much zucchini I needed for the lasagna and ended up buying WAY too much. Since I seem to be making things I've never made before, I decided to attempt my first zucchini bread. In my smaller crock pot.

I'm not even going to share the recipe. It was THAT bad. I used one from a non-crock pot cookbook and tried to convert it. Big mistake. After an hour on high, the edges looked like they'd burn if I kept it crocking, so I turned it off even though the middle was still soupy. I let it cool for about half hour before inverting, but it didn't help. At all. I hate, hate, HATE cooking things on high with my smaller pot. It always burns things!

This is what I made!

Gross, right? It tasted even worse! The batter was salty, the innards were soupy, and the outtards were burnt. Ick.

Before I tossed everything in the trash, got a bit silly...

"There's a hole in this cake bread!"

Next time, I'll find a recipe that comes from a crock pot cook book and I'll cook it on LOW for several hours. It's time to pretend my small crock pot has no HIGH option.