Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Mediterranean veggie lasagna

Remember how I said I could never be a real food blogger because I never come up with any original recipes? Well, last night, cooked something that I completely made up, and happened to be really delicious!

I wanted to make a big meal last night, since today after work I'm heading down to Florida to hang out with my dad for the rest of the week. I needed lunch today, and Aaron needed meals for (most of) the rest of the week. Those stipulations obviously lead me to the idea of a giant ass pasta casserole.

If you happen to want to make this concoction, here's how I did it:

Ingredients:

About half to 2/3 box of lasagna noodles
whole milk ricotta cheese (1 small-medium container)
shredded mozzarella cheese (to taste)

1 stick butter
1 pint heavy cream
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese
pepper
oregano and other seasonings

The veggies I included are:
spinach
artichokes
sun dried tomatoes
sliced black olives
sliced mushrooms

I'm not too much of an onion person, but I think red and/or a little green onion could have been good in this as well as a myriad of other things. You could throw on some chicken if you're (crazy &) not satisfied by veggies alone.

Directions:

Boil water to cook your pasta to al dente while you make your alfredo sauce: melt butter, cheese and stir in cream over low-medium heat. I seasoned with a little bit of pepper and dried oregano. You could season it with whatever you want or not at all! Combine and let stand until it thickens up a bit.

Drain your noodles and start assembling your casserole. This is my favorite part because it's total teamwork.

Grease the casserole dish with a little bit of olive oil and lay down the first noodle layer, followed by some ricotta (you'll have to spread this out a bit - best to take it out of fridge a few minutes before you start), a layer of veggies & then, sauce. Repeat three times or until you've reached the top of your casserole dish.

Make sure to reserve some sauce and a handful of mozz & parm for the top. Cover with foil & bake for 30ish minutes at 375ish, remove foil and continue to cook until cheese is melted & delicious-looking.

Everyone always says to let lasagna cool off for an appropriate amount of time so it'll all hold together nicely. I call BS on that, because you'll want to eat this thing right away, and while you eat your first, falling-apart piece, the rest of it will firm up a bit, so that's cool.

I was worried about this being a little too bland with the ricotta and alfredo sauce, but I used canned artichokes & olives as well as marinated sun dried tomatoes, which had enough salt and flavor to save this lasagna from a bland fate. If you're using all fresh ingredients, I'd suggest seasoning it up a bit more, and I maybe should have done that anyway, but New Girl was coming on, so...

And speaking of sun dried tomatoes, why are those things SO DELICIOUS?! I know they're considered kind of tacky sometimes, but I seriously want to put them in everything.

Consider this my attempt at an actual foodie post, but don't expect too many more of these. I think this was a complete and utter fluke - but a very delicious one.

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