Cooking Light's Garden-Style Lasagna

iChrissy has decided a healthier, more fit lifestyle is a must if she's going to be in sexy swimsuit shape this season. As iChrissy was standing in the grocery store line with her little basket of organic granola, fortified soy milk, and lean chicken breast...She stared off into space when the cover of a cooking magazine caught her eye. It was a big bowl of Mac and cheese! iChrissy truly felt like the cover's headline "mmm...Mac & cheese"...Oh, how the granola is already making her wish for a double cheeseburger and fries...

But wait, the magazine was COOKING LIGHT! What luck! Maybe healthy eating won't be so bad. iChrissy bought March 2006 issue in an attempt to model her lifestyle after the tag line plaster on the top "Eat Smart - Be Fit - Live Well". Flipping through iChrissy found a more interesting recipe than the Mac and cheese. She found Garden-Style Lasagna that didn't use ricotta cheese, but cottage cheese instead. With only 272 calories per serving, iChrissy was expecting the worse.

The recipe calls for a variety of frozen and pre-cut veggies that layered with a milk-based cheesy white sauce. So far, it didn't seem so bad.

3 layers were easily put together with oven ready lasagna noodles. The milk sauce was mixed with thawed chopped spinach. On top of that was the raw noodles and on top of that was the cottage cheese-veggie mixture. 3 or 4 layers later, we have ourselves something that looks like normal fattening lasagna!

White Sauce:
















Cottage Cheese Sauce:
















Lasagna Pre-Baked:
















Baked at 375 for 20 minutes and tahdah! A beautiful lasgana came out! The only thing left was the taste test. Would the cottage cheese be a good substitute for ricotta cheese? Would the veggies be a good filling with enough flavor?

Post-Baked:
















The Conclusion:

Honestly, the lasagna wasn't too bad. The cottage cheese had melted into oblivion leaving no substitute for ricotta cheese and the white sauce tasted a bit more like milk than cheese. But all in all, I can't say that I won't make it again. It was a healthy alternative to the regular lasagna and it was a whole lot lighter. iChrissy tried to pass it off as regular lasagna to iBoy, but he knew something was up. But with more convincing, iBoy accepted that it was just crappy lasagna.

Rating: 3 Out of 5 Cupcakes of Approval

iChrissy's 1st Official iKitchen Steak-Off

Here it is folks, just as the title proclaims, iChrissy's iKitchen's First Official Steak Off!! Not that long ago, iChrissy and iGuy were arguing about how great Costco steaks were and how incomparable Harry's Farmers Market (aka, Whole Foods) Dry Aged Steaks tasted. iGuy unrelentlessly rooted for Whole Foods where as iChrissy insisted Costco was superior by far. This weekend, it was the be all ends all Battle of the Beef - Round: Porterhouse!

Laying in the warm spring sun, iChrissy and iGuy planned the official menu: 1 Porterhouse Steak each of Costco and Whole Foods, a fancy-yet-simple herb potato dish, and Buttery-Garlic White Button Mushrooms. Two hours later, the iCouple were on our way and ready to cook. Surprisingly, the iCouple started allotting points with a raw side-by-side comparison. Whole Foods' steak was clearly darker with Costco's Porterhouse looking like a pork chop. But iChrissy did not waiver in her opinion, she stuck to her guns are she prepared the raw meat. A simple kosher salt dusting and resting to less than refrigerator temperature was perfect for outdoor propane grilling.

Raw Steak/Pre-Grilled:
(Costco t-bone on left, Whole Foods dry aged on right)















iGuy trashed talked his way through the whole grilling process and iChrissy being the dimure, shrinking violet that she is, nobly stood by keeping the faith that the mega warehouse meat would be the shining star. To keep the contest constant, iCouple decided the meat would be cooked medium-rare in accordance to the Brookstone Grill Alert Talking Remote Meat Thermometer. (This device is a must for the avid meat eater or the notorious meat overcooker).

Trash Talking iGuy:















Grilled Steaks with Thermometer probe:
(Costco Steak on left, Whole Foods Dry Aged Steak on right)
















IGuy expertly grilled each steak with the picturesque grill marks. After ample resting time, the games had begun!!

Costco Porterhouse steak: $8.00 each (pack of 2: $16)
Whole Foods Dry Aged Porterhouse steak: $17.00

4 pieces from each steak, 2 from the tenderloin and 2 from top loin.
Piece 1: outer edge, away from the bone on the top loin side
Piece 2: outer edge, away from the bone on the tenderloin side
Piece 3: close to the bone, from the tenderloin side
Piece 4: close to the bone, from the top loin side

Constestants:
(piece as described above from left to right)















Taste-Test iGuy Primed for Eating:
(Between bites, iGuy washed his palate with swigs of Monty Python's Holy Ail)















The taste test was simple. IGuy has piece 1 from steak A, comment on the flavor, texture and doneness, wash his palate with Monty Python's Holy Ail, and eat piece 1 from steak B. After both piece, he would tell iChrissy which steak was better. To be fair, iGuy has a preference for pieces with more char, but nonetheless, the results were unanimous.

The Conclusion:

In the end, iGuy had chosen the Whole Foods Dry Aged Porterhouse every round! iChrissy was crushed! Unbelievable! For sure the pieces close to the bone would have reigned supreme! BUT NO! Feebly, after iChrissy tried a few pieces of no particular order, she too had to admit that Whole Food's Porterhouse was more tender and slightly more flavorful. But the price difference is far too great to side with Whole Foods in the Porterhouse arena. iChrissy still votes for Costco despite the flavor differences.

iGuy's comments: iGuy, now known as the Carne Connoisseur, was able to identify the Dry-Aged fancy pants porterhouse in all four rounds. Let it be known, however, that the taste of each steak was too close to call in each round sans the fourth round. IGuy had to switch to texture in the first three rounds to determine a favorite, and thus it was not surprising that the Dry Aged fancy pants porterhouse won in the tenderness category. Visually, it was no contest. The disparity in pre-grilled and post-grilled color made this contest a wash. As for value, this was also a no contest. Costco’s steaks are definitely of high quality, and when incorporating value into the equation, it would be tough for iGuy to overlook the fair budget value of the warehouse brand.

iGuy's Full Action Shot:
















iGuy's Rating: Whole Foods Dry Aged Porterhouse: 4 out of 5Cleaverss of Approval







iGuy's Rating: Costco's Porterhouse: 3.5 out of 5 Cleavers of Approval