It had to be done.  It was just getting out of control.  I speak, of course, of my list of recipes "to try".  There are several websites I collect recipes through: Taste of Home, Whole Foods, Cooking Channel, Food Network, and Pinterest (of course).  Between all of them, I had...well, even a lot more than I do now.  I cleared out Taste of Home a while back and pinned all of those to a board on Pinterest.  Last weekend, I went through all of my saved recipes for Food Network, Whole Foods, and Cooking Channel.  I got rid of well over 100 recipes, people!  Oh, and I don't even know how many I binned from my recipe software, too.  Don't act like you're not impressed.

So what was my criteria?  When you have that many to choose from, how do you know what to keep? Well, here's what I did.

Roast Chicken: Gone.  I have one really great, simple roast chicken recipe.  It's all I really need.  You don't need to fancy it up or have endless variations unless you make it all the time, which I don't.  In fact, I very rarely make roast chicken anymore--I know, there was a time I was doing it every week--because I don't do that particular CSA any longer, so I don't get whole chickens any more.

Pasta: Gone.  I'm sorry, I just can't have twenty new pasta recipes to try when we just don't eat it that much anymore.  Since Celiac came into our lives and we had to go GF, we've eaten pasta less than ten times.  Would I have kept them if we weren't a GF household?  Heck yes!  I LOVE pasta, but the GF stuff just isn't the same, and it's just not worth it.

Ditto to anything else particularly gluten-y (i.e. bread).  Let's face it, I'm not a baker.

Anything else that I wasn't particularly wild about: Gone.  This is serious business.  I can't hold spots for C-string players...I just made a sports metaphor.  I need someone to tell me if I used it appropriately.

So where does that leave me?  Around 300 recipes stil to try.  And that's a vast improvement!  Hey, at least it's not more right?  How do you decide which recipes to try and which to ignore?

It's not that I can't be made happy.  I just have that type of mind that wonders, "I wonder what happens when I...", which can be really great or very dangerous.  When it comes to lasagna that uses veggies in place of noodles, the result is delicious.  If you follow this blog, you'll remember my adventures in using spaghetti squash for the first time a few weeks ago.  Today's entry is very nearly the same thing, except that I used zucchini instead of spaghetti squash...and risked my life with a mandoline instead of a massive chef's knife.  Let's begin!

I'm not going to include the recipe here, but you can follow the link above and see what I did with the spaghetti squash.  I'll point out the minor differences as we go.  Behold!  My mandoline.  I'm very proud to say I can finally put it together and take it apart without the instruction booklet.  Also, behold my zucchini (corgettes, as I've recently discovered, to my English friends).  I used three bigger ones and one little one.

Mine can vary the slice width between 1/16 and 1/4 inches.  I went with 1/4" slices.

As you can see, I cut my zucchini lengthwise so that they resembled the shape of lasagna noodles.  Warning!: Always use the hand guard  doubly so when slicing things lengthwise.  The larger the food, the more unwieldy it can be.

Tadaa!  Nice big zucchini slices.  Time to roast.

For this application, I roasted my zucchini at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  You'll notice I also had some red peppers in there.  The peppers eventually got moved to the top.  I also wish I had used parchment paper across the racks, as the zucchini sticks a bit.

Fun Story: I decided to roast the peppers based on the suggestion of a friend, Kelly.  Her logic was that you can dry out the zucchini and then it will then rehydrate by sucking up the sauce in the lasagna.  Keep in mind, this is the same person who witnessed my squash-medallion-roasting failure.  Oh well, I'm adventurous, and her logic seemed sound.

While the veggies are roasting, time to do some preliminary assembly.  I though the lasagna would end up being four layers, so I divided my beef into quarters (1/4 lb each).  Usually I would cook it first, but the beef was 90/10, so I skipped that part.  Had it been 80/20, I would have cooked and drained it first, so pay attention to your fat content.

The zucchini roasting worked!  Thanks for the idea, Kelly.  And, in case you're wondering, the dried out medallions of yellow squash got frozen after that fiasco and will one day feature in another vegetable lasagna. :-)  I tried to spread the ricotta cheese out as evenly as possible, and I think I succeeded for the most part.

The red peppers that got roasted were then skinned (ten minutes in an airtight container after roasting will make the skins come away from the flesh easily) and sliced to be layered into the lasagna.

I only ended up doing two layers, technically, and then topped the whole thing with mozzarella.

Tadaa!  30 minutes in the oven at 350/375 (depending on how hot your oven runs) and this is what you get.  Deeeeeee-licious!

Just like the spaghetti squash version, this was great!  It did include beef, unlike its predecessor  which Mike liked better--that was a given.  If you're looking for a low-carb one-dish meal, you found it.  Want it to be even lower fat?  Use ground chicken or turkey and low fat/skim cheese.  Need it to be vegetarian?  Cut out the meat altogether.  You get my drift.  You've got options, and it'll still be absolutely delicious.

One this episode of Starbucks Crossed Love...

Starbucks: Dana, my darling, it's autumn.  The leaves are changing, the wind blows colder, and apples are in season.  Apples, my lovely.  Why don't you have a nice warm Caramel Apple Spice.

Dana: Starbucks, sweetie, I don't need your Caramel Apple Spice.  I can make that myself now.  We've talked about this.  We can never go back to what we used to be.

Starbucks: Another, Dana?  Another copycat recipe?  You wound me.  Still...how about a Salted Caramel Mocha?  It's new.

Dana: Curse you...

I know!  I know!  I said I broke up with Starbucks, that it was just going to be a road trip booty call from now on.  Starbucks is crafty, though, the way it keeps on enticing me with new and delicious drinks.  Well, at least I don't have to pay for Caramel Apple Spices any longer.  Where did I find such a great copycat recipe?  I'll give you one guess.  I'll wait while you think about this...

...

That's right!  Pinterest!  The original post is here.  This could not be easier.  Let's do this!

Easy start.  The syrup will darken as it cooks down.  Above is the beginning and end of the cooking process.  Yes, really, this is the only cooking required.

Now for the apple juice.  I got one with no sugar added just in case--some apple juices are just so sweet, I thought it might be too much when the syrup was added.  Good thing I have this handy-dandy beaker cup for measuring.  Also, if you know me and you know what the company I work for does (we test urine samples!), this is kind of a gross picture.  Think about it...

There's the cinnamon-y syrup all ready to go.  Look at how much that made!  The cost of the homemade syrup is probably a fraction of how much the drink from Starbucks costs.  Now we just need some hot apple juice.

Voila!  Caramel Apple Spice.  "But wait!" you say.  "Where's the whipped cream and caramel?"  I don't take my CAS with whipped cream and caramel, so I didn't bother with them.

This.  Is.  AWESOME!  It's like autumn in a mug.  So sweet and cinnamon-y and apple-licious!  And just like what you can get from Starbucks.  LOOOOOOOVE!  Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to backslide once in a while, but not for a Caramel Apple Spice. :-)

Bonus

I made this kale, beet, and bacon dish this week, too, but I didn't take any pictures.  I honestly didn't think it was going to be that great.  I really just needed some way to use up some stuff that was sitting in my fridge.  I was wrong; it's fantastic!  I do think the recipe has you cook the kale too long, but it turned out really nice anyway.