Faux Lasagna & Spaghetti Joes

aka recipes to support Jenn's pending insanity

Woah! What the.... Let's start at the beginning!

My full + happy belly urges me to post this.  My inner artist does too.  But there's a liiiiiittle voice inside my head that tells me you're going to think I'm crazy.  It's ok!  Think away!  But until you try this, know you are totally missing out on a fun excuse to play with your food.  Plus, it was damn good too!

It started out with zucchini. I initially wanted to cut them into pretty little shapes.  Until there was an "incident" causing me to bail on such treacherous intentions.  Instead, the zukes got sliced into little discs... which lead to burning desire to slice a few garden tomato discs as well.  I can safely say I had a few to spare.

My bowl runneth over.

Next thing I know i'm pulling out leftover spaghetti sauce and a bowl full of leftover cheesy manicotti stuffing from the fridge.  In the time it took to boil a pot of spaghetti noodles, I had made a simple-yet-delicious faux lasagna. Score! <3

Faux [ish?] Lasagna

What's in it?
Layer 1 - Leftover Cheesy Veggie Manicotti Stuffing [minus the pesto]
Layer 2 - Four Roma tomatoes, sliced
Layer 3 - 1 large zucchini, sliced into discs
Layer 4 - 1/2 box of spaghetti noodles, cooked

Layer 5 - 16oz Fire Roasted Spaghetti Sauce, or your favorite red sauce
Layer 6 - Grated Parmesan cheese

Feel free to alternate each layer twice if you'd like or simply once like I did.  It's alllll good! <3

T-Rex Chefs I won't cry if you add ground turkey/beef/sausage to this. I married a rabid carnivore.

So naturally, unless you're feeding four with this recipe, you are going to wind up with some leftovers. Most of my friends are self-appointed leftover snobs and hate eating the same thing two times in a row.  Enter the super strange but fabulously delicious Spaghetti Joes!

Spaghetti Joes

What on earth did you do this time?
Putting leftovers on a sandwich is almost always genius.  I say almost, because if you're eating a mashed potato sandwich you *might* have a problem. =)  Anywho!  Melt a little butter or olive oil with garlic and spread it onto a toasted kaiser roll. Then top with a heaping pile of re-heated leftover faux lasagna (or any leftover spaghetti dish really!) and add a few extra slices of zucchini and tomato if you have em!  Most importantly, enjoy your silly-yet-fabulous meatless sloppy joe. The noodles help this sandwich measure up to the traditional sloppy joe texture without using meat. Plus its absolutely delicious!

I'm totally making this for my future kiddos someday =)