Wanting to Add Spinach to Lasagna
bbstx
3 years ago
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I want to try lasagna gardening, but...
Comments (13)I feel nothing but scorn for Pat Lanza who stole Ruth's Stout's (and others) deep mulch gardening techniques, renamed it "lasagna" gardening, and never gave so much of a nod to Stout. That said : ^> ... I've used newspaper a lot and I'm always surprised to hear people doing these two things to it: A.) putting the newspaper layer on the bottom of their layers to prevent weed seeds in the soil from germinating. Then they cover the newspaper with materials that weeds LOVE!! and easily root in. Manure, sometimes people even recommend putting soil on the newspaper (!). The newspaper works best on the top of the layers where it's an impenetrable weed barrier. Then I put something fairly inert on top---certainly not manure or soil---to weigh it down. I use something wonderful that you probably don't have access to: seaweed covered with something pretty---chipped leaves or hay. B.) the other thing that kind of defeats the beauty of using newspaper is to shred it. If you shred your newspaper, any weed with an ounce of brains, arrives at the fluffball of shredded newspaper, elbows it aside, and heads towards the light. If you use layers of paper, the weed hits its head on the newspaper ceiling and that's the end of that. Although---I garden in Maine, so my experience with newspaper may be different than yours, but because of my newspaper mulch, I almost never water. If your experience is the same as mine, you're going to find that the paper stays moist almost all of the season. And when you water, it works like blotter paper, soaking up the water before it can run off. I secretly like rototilling, which I bet really is bad for the soil---like 'they' say. I'm not able to till here, so I've been either using deep mulch methods or forking in my amendments for the last 12 years at this site. Like the others, I like amending my soils with as much organic matter as I can get my hands on (which is never enough) before covering it with my upper mulch....See MoreHow to add SWALE during "lasagna" conversion of lawn to plants?
Comments (6)Actually, designing a swale or even a rain garden is a good idea for many gardens, even quite small ones. And it really doesn't make too much difference with the dryness - or not - of the climate. Unless already existing as a low lying, water accumulating area (i.e. a bog or swamp, perhaps only seasonally), a swale will simply catch and retain rainfall and allow it to be gradually absorbed into the soil. Among the reasons for this is to avoid seasonal flooding of the landscape, to reabsorb pollutants that are present in storm run-off before they can reach streams and groundwater or simply to retain and re-use infrequent rainfall. In your case, the latter seems most appropriate although when it does rain in SoCal, that rain can come fast and furious, so the other two reasons may be equally as valid as well, at least on a now-and-again basis. A swale is just a low lying area......when rainfall does occur, the water will flow to the lowest point, the swale, so it does need to be constructed to be lower than current grade. If any slope to the yard at all, the swale should be located at the low point. If not, you need to grade your new "lasagna" planting to slope away from the structure and toward to the designated swale site. And you will need to excavate the swale to some degree, depending on the thickness you can manage with your lasagna method. I doubt constructing swales was devised with a lasagna method of bed construction in mind. It does involve some work to do it correctly. Grading and directing water runoff to the correct area is critical. And you want something that slows water penetration yet provides good drainage at the bottom of the swale, not just soil - coarse sand and river rocks or coarse drainage gravel are common. And yes, this is much more of a landscape design issue than just a soil question ;-) Do some research online to see how to construct an effective swale. Even check out rain garden sites - they are a wealth of information for this sort of activity if for a slightly different purpose. One other thing you may want to do is investigate dry stream beds as a landscape feature. Not only do these make an attractive focal point to a drought tolerant garden, they will help to direct any rainwater runoff (even irrigation run-off) to the appropriate swale location where it can be dissipated evenly through the soil profile. Where moisture accumulates surrounding the swale and along its sides is where you can locate more thirsty plants. If you don't already have a landscape designer, you might want to consider hiring one. They could be a huge help in the layout, design and construction of this kind of feature, as well as offering suitable planting suggestions....See MoreWant to make zucchini lasagna and sub...
Comments (9)Lasagna is more about a method than a recipe. All of your ingredients sound good except for one thing: Moisture. You have lots of moisture and nothing to sop it up with--or, that is, I took this to mean that you want to use zucchini instead of pasta. The pasta is what soaks up the excess moisture, as well as the ricotta (if you use it well drained). Why does it have to have sour cream? Just because you have it? I think your ingredients sound fine except for the sour cream. The dish is light on protein if you don't use the meat. You could try draining the sour cream, or even adding some heat and acid to separate it from from the whey, but you don't need it to make lasagna. Okay, this might work if you really want to use the sour cream. Instead of making a tomato sauce, per se, use it to make a cream tomato sauce. Use your thicker canned tomato products, like some whole or diced tomatoes, drained, and some tomato paste. Recipe-ish: Slice the zucchini thin, lightly oil with cooking oil, and lightly season. Lay on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and roast or broil at 375-400° (depending on your oven) until well dry and just starting to get dark edges. Set the sour cream out on the counter to warm up some. Sauté a couple diced onions (or a giant one like they had at my store the other day), a diced red pepper or two, and 6 large cloves of garlic to a whole head, pressed or minced, depending on your preference as to quantity. Add any of the other vegetables you mentioned, cut to the same size as your onions and pepper--or steam them separately, and mix with dried herbs to use instead of meat. Be generous with the oil, which will help the viscosity of the sauce. Add chopped or dried Italian herbs: a spoon or two of oregano, thyme, basil, parsley, etc., plus some black pepper and, if you like a little heat, crushed red pepper. Stir in a can or two of tomato paste until you have a very stiff chunky sauce. Add the solids from your diced or whole canned tomatoes. Add salt to taste, but there may be plenty in the cans. Remove from heat. When the sauce has cooled down to no more than slightly warm, stir in the sour cream. Beat in an egg or two. Do you have any more cheese than the half lb. of mozzarella? Some bread crumbs? If you have bread crumbs--if this isn't meant to be a starch free dish--toast them on your baking tray. You're just drying them out. Or, if you have matzah meal or matzah (Cuisinart is great for grinding matzah) you can skip the toasting. The bread crumbs are there to soak up moisture and help with the gluing since there isn't much cheese. If you're making a meat version, brown the ground beef and add seasoning, herbs (try tarragon, for instance) and some tomato paste, or use crushed tomatoes and reduce out the extra water. If you're using the spinach feta chicken sausage, and it's already cooked, tear it up, or else cook it in crumbles. Make a béchamel, including the nutmeg, and stir the sausage into it. The apple sausage isn't a good idea with tomato. Or prepare the broccoli, cauliflower, maybe some carrots, and any other veg you want, as stated above, by steaming and dressing with a little olive oil and plenty of dried herbs. S&P to taste. You can use béchamel instead of the oil, but I'm losing track of whether or not there can be wheat in this dish. The trick is to chop small. Bigger than minced, but small enough not to be chunks that need to be chewed separately. Put a big spoon of sauce, without many chunks in the bottom of the pan and spread it all around, or oil the pan well. Lay out the zucchini slices to cover as much as possible. Spread on the sauce with a soft baking spatula. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, if you're using them, enough cheese to cover but being careful to leave plenty for the layers and a goodly amount for the top. Add a second layer of zucchini and sauce and a layer of your saucy meat, or steamed veg mix, or another layer of the tomato sauce, bread crumbs and cheese. Repeat the first layer and cap with a fourth layer of zucchini, or go straight to the topping, depending on the height of your dish. You can go five or six layers if you have enough zucchini, filling and dish. If you have any sauce left, coat the top layer of zucchini with it. If not, slightly dilute some tomato paste with wine and oil until it's just spreadable and use that. Sprinkle with herbs. Cover liberally with the rest of your cheese. Cover very loosely with foil and bake at 350° for about 35 minutes. Remove the foil and finish baking for another 10-15 minutes until nicely browned and bubbling hot. An alternative would be to make béchamel (besciamella) out of the sour cream. It's possible. I've done it. But it's so so so easy to make it go wrong and have it curdle or split that I don't really recommend it unless you feel very comfortable doing it. That is, it's possible if it's pure cream (ingredients says cream and enzymes). If there are stabilizers or even just added milk solids or something, don't even try. That's traditional lasagna, the besciamella is. Good luck! Buon appetito!...See MoreRECIPE: Tofu Lasagna (2 Recipes)
Comments (1)Here's another! And on the same dime: Tofu Pie! Blessings, Jillis! TOFU LASAGNA Ingredients: 1\2 lb. lasagna noodles 2 tbsp. vegetable oil 1 medium onion, chopped 1\2 lb. mushrooms 1 clove garlic, minced 2 tbsp. chopped parsley 1 1\2 lbs. firm or soft tofu, mashed 1\2 tsp. salt 1\2 cup grated Romano cheese 1\4 tsp. pepper 1\4 cup grated mozzarella cheese 3 cups spaghetti sauce Cook lasagna noodles, drain and set aside. Saute onion, mushrooms and garlic in 2 tbsp. vegetable oil. Set aside. In a bowl, mix together tofu, Romano cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix together the sauteed vegetables and tofu mixture. Oil an 8 X 11 baking dish. Place a row of noodles on the bottom of the baking dish. Build layers, alternating the noodles, tofu mixture and spaghetti sauce. Sprinkle a little cheese on top. Cover the dish with aluminum foil. Bake in a preheated at 350"F for 40 minutes. Remove foil. Bake another 10 minutes. Serve. TOFU PIE Ingredients: Pie Filling: 3 diced carrots / 3 diced stalks of celery / 3 diced turnips / 2 diced onions or leeks / 1\2 bunch parsley / 1 small eggplant / 4 Tbsp. veg. oil / 2 or 3 garlic cloves / 1 lb. TOFU / 1 Tbsp. soy sauce...See Morebbstx
3 years ago
Olychick
3 years agobbstx
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3 years agobbstx
3 years agobbstx
3 years ago
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