I’ve been putting fresh lemon zest into everything lately. One of my friends had an abundance of Meyer lemons and she gave me a whole bunch. I even took some of the zest and froze it in little 1 Tablespoon measures, so I can pull it out and just pop it into a recipe, usually soup, but it would be great in tomato sauce too.
The other thing that I’ve been using a lot of is different kinds of Asian mushrooms. We have a fairly new Korean market in our town and the schrooms are very inexpensive (compared to say Whole Foods or even Vons or Ralphs) and they have many more varieties than the regular stores. So I might consider adding Bunashimeji Mushrooms, especially because I love the little guy who’s the logo on the package. I’ve also been using a lot of Shiitake Mushrooms and these huge King Oyster Trumpet Mushrooms (which totally remind me of the Chinese dancing mushrooms in Fantasia).
I saw something on one of th cooking shows that suggested that you should sautée your veggies, especially mushrooms first, with olive oil and onions (or maybe shallots would be even better) and garlic before you layer them into your lasagne. It gives them a bigger depth of flavor.
I love ricotta cheese, but a few weeks back, I experimented with low fat cottage cheese. I didn’t want it to be too watery, so I put the cottage cheese into a coffee filter lined net strainer over a pan and let it drain over night, covered with plastic wrap. The cottage cheese gave the lasagne a little bit more of a tangy twang that I really liked.