Eggplant Quinoa Lasagna & Birthday Highlights

"It's not even my birthday," -Rihanna, Birthday Cake.

This song is my guilty pleasure. Whenever this song comes on, I just dance like crazy. And I don't like dancing.

Granted, it's not the greatest song lyrically, but it's catchy. And the lyrics are easy to remember. She says "cake" exactly 15 times in one sentence. Easy enough, right?

Addicting pop songs aside, it was my BIRTHDAY a week ago!! Hence the song reference. Ironically, my birthday is the one day of the year that I can't sing Birthday Cake. (Don't tell anyone, but I did anyway).

Mama got these for me :3

It was lovely. I didn't have class until noon, I was done at 2:30, and I had enough time to cook for the first time in so. long. What did we make? Eggplant quinoa lasagna. That's right. It's amazing. And super healthy! You slice the eggplant super thin, and they replace the pasta sheets. The quinoa replaces the meat. I could even eat the quinoa on its own. It's that good. But it's better layered with eggplant, marinara sauce, and cheese. Trust me. The original recipe is made with zucchini...but frankly, we all know that eggplant trumps zucchini. And if you disagree with me, then you're wrong.

Sry for the bad picture. I was eagerly awaiting consumption.

Eggplant Quinoa Lasagna

Adapted from Peas and Thank You

Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant
• 1 c red quinoa (regular quinoa is fine too, obviously, but the red quinoa makes it look more like meat :D )
• 2 c vegetable broth
• 1/2 c tomato sauce
• 1/4 c minced onion
• 1 t dried oregano
• 1/2 t dried parsley
• 1/4 c fresh basil, chopped
• red pepper flakes (if you want it spicy)
• 2 T cream cheese
• salt and pepper
• 1 jar marinara sauce (I used Newman's Own Sockarooni. I like spicy.)
• 1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. To prepare eggplant, cut a strip off one side to make a flat base. Then use a mandolin to make them into super thin slices. Or you could do it by hand, but that's difficult.
3. Place eggplant strips in a colander, layered between paper towels and sprinkled with salt.
4. Let sit while preparing the quinoa.
5. Combine quinoa, vegetable broth, tomato sauce, onion, parsley, and oregano in a medium sized pot (or saucepan) and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
6. When quinoa has absorbed all the liquid, fold in cream cheese and basil. Add salt and pepper. Taste it. Just once, though.
7. Pour enough marinara sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish to cover the bottom.
8. Using a clean dry towel, blot remaining moisture and salt from eggplant and lay enough strips to cover the sauce.
9. Put a layer of quinoa across the eggplant (this is why you shouldn't eat more than a spoonful...I may or may not have disregarded this rule), and cover with another 1/3 c of marinara sauce.
10. Repeat another layer of quinoa, sauce, and eggplant.
11. Top the final layer of eggplant with remaining sauce and 1/2 c of cheese.
12. Bake lasagna for 30 minutes. Let cool for 10-15 minutes.

Lol it's so hard to take a good picture of this

So yeah! Ellen and I made the lasagna, and Lauren came over for dinner. And Ellen made me a flourless chocolate cake, too!

Double-fisting

HBD 2 ME

Flourless chocolate cake!

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful....until Friday. I mean, I had a ton of work to keep me busy until then, but I was especially excited because Léa was coming to visit for the weekend!!! I hadn't seen her since mid-July in Lebanon, and having her here for the weekend was the best present ever :)

Anyway, I've never been able to celebrate my birthday at school with my friends before. Freshman year, it was too early in the year for me to invite a bunch of friends over. Last year, well....Grandpa got sick, and I wanted to be there with him as much as I could. I kept trying to plan it once he got better, but then his health started failing and I wanted to be by his side nearly 24/7. I ended up being busy every weekend with either going to the hospital, the funeral, fall break, or....the blackout -____- By that time it was the beginning of November. So I gave up.

But this year was different. This year I would have a party. And so I did. And it was fantastic.

Ellen so lovingly made this for me!!!! So thoughtful <3

Lauren, Debbie, and me!

<3

mah gurls in blue

"Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake" -Rihanna

da best.

OPPAN GANGNAM STYLE

I have the best fraaanz

So yes! I had a fabulous birthday surrounded by amazing friends. It was so much fun to celebrate with them! I also made two vegan desserts that I will share with you soon :) (Hint: one of them involves chocolate chips. The other involves peanut butter & jelly).

In other news, I just found out that I am allowed to drop my religion class!! Praise the lord. But I guess the downside is that I'll have to find a different time to practice my Arabic calligraphy.

Oh, I've also decided to rerererererereplay my favorite video game, Tales of Symphonia. If you haven't played it, do it. Although they stopped making it a while ago, since it's a Gamecube game. I bought an extra copy for myself 2 years ago, just in case. Anyway, yeah. I've beaten it a vast number of times, but the last time I played it was probably 4 years ago. And it's still just as amazing. I started Monday evening and I'm already 8 hours in! It's really been helpful in terms of stress, and just overall enjoyment. Shout-out to my cousin Chris Feghali--we just discovered our mutual love for ToS and I am so excited.

Seriously though, I really can't express how much I love this game. I even named my car after one of the characters (Tabatha). Also my fangirl crush on Zelos has been rekindled (ignore the fact that I thought he was a girl until I actually heard him speak in the game). And I've decided to be Sheena for Halloween, as well as Daria. I just can't figure out which one of Sheena's costumes I should choose. I know they'll be hard to make, though....

THE best. I'm gonna go play it now. I have to beat Kvar, after all.

Yeah. Um. Gaming aside, I had a great birthday. And to top it all off, Mama came down yesterday and brought me Thai chili, butternut squash soup, and beans & greens! I love her so much <3

Okay! Time to go beat one of the Desian Grand Cardinals. Thanks for reading! Or looking at pictures. Or both.

Song of the Day #1-- Birthday Cake by Rihanna, of course. But it's not for all audiences, so I'll include another song, courtesy of the Tales of Symphonia OST.

Song of the Day #2-- Revival from Tales of Symphonia, composed by Motoi Sakuraba. I transcribed the song on the piano once--I'll have to find the sheet music I wrote down for it. It's really quite beautiful.

Video of the Day-- Okay, I lied. This is a one-time thing. But I had to! It's the Tales of Symphonia intro, of course. I still hyperventilate whenever I watch it.

Recovery Link of the Day-- Coincidentally, this was posted on my birthday. "The enemy does not stand a chance when its victim decides to survive." -Rae Smith (it actually sounds like something Kratos from ToS would say...)

Gamingly,

Carina

BYOS.....bring your own straw.

P.S. Holy frick just as I was finishing this post, my Christmas tree lights I had hung up above my window came crashing down. I almost screamed. But I didn't, and that's the important thing.