Vegetarian

Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onion, and Spinach Lasagna

I have a very vivid memory of the last time I ate butternut squash: It was March 2003 and I was in a restaurant in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas where I ate butternut squash soup while President Bush declared war on Iraq on a nearby television.  I’ll never forget it.  It was the first time I’d had butternut squash and may be why it’s been so long since I’ve tried it again.  I was a vegetarian then and although I liked the soup, I remember thinking it was very rich and I couldn’t finish it.  This recipe for Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onion, and Spinach Lasagna is the first time I’ve ever cooked anything with butternut squash before.  If you aren’t sure how to peel or cut a butternut squash, check out this website which helped me.  The butternut squash is roasted in the oven with garlic until soft and sweet.  Meanwhile, onions are slowly caramelized and spinach is wilted in a pan on the stove.  These soft veggies are all piled between layers of no-boil lasagna noodles (one less step!) and a creamy, cheesy bechemel sauce.  This vegetarian lasagna takes a little preparation but if you like a savory dish with a hint of sweetness, you’ll probably like this.

The ingredients (ignore the diced tomatoes, my mistake!):

Peel and chop the butternut squash.  Add to a baking sheet with sage and garlic (leave garlic whole, not chopped like I did) and roast in the oven for half an hour at 425°F.  Once mixture has cooled slightly, pour into a bowl and mash with a fork.

While squash roasts, sauté the onions in oil for a few minutes.  Lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes until soft and caramelized.  Set aside in a bowl.

In the same pan used to cook the onions, add water and spinach and cover until spinach is wilted.  Add spinach to bowl with onions.

In a separate saucepan, bring milk, thyme sprig and bay leaf to a boil.  Set aside for 10 minutes.

Discard the thyme sprig and bay leaf and return the pan to heat.  In a small bowl, combine remaining milk and flour.  Add mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

Once bechemel is thickened, add salt, cheese, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

In a baking dish, layer bechemel sauce, lasagna noodles, and veggies (in that order) and repeat, ending with noodles. 

Cover last layer of noodles with remaining bechemel sauce and bake at 425° for 30 minutes.  Sprinkle remaining cheese over top of lasagna and broil until golden brown.

Additions: 

  • Parmesan cheese on top

Omissions:  None

Substitutions:

  • Italian four-cheese for fontina (because I had it on hand)

Overall Rating:  Like It

Source:  Cooking Light Magazine

Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Any day now, one of our national channels will be showing the classic animated special, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  It seems only fitting that I break out my pumpkin recipes this week (if you don’t like pumpkin, you may want to check back next week!) in honor of this seasonal favorite.  My first recipe is the savory Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells.

Jumbo shells are filled with pumpkin, ricotta, cheese, and fresh herbs and baked in tomato sauce.  These shells are SO good!  The woodsy sage in the ricotta mixture blends well with the pumpkin and the basil provides a freshness to the whole dish.   Stuffed shells sometimes seem more work than they are worth but if you use a storage or freezer bag to stuff the shells, the whole process will be much easier.

The ingredients:

First, cook the shells and set aside to cool.  Drizzle with a little bit of olive oil.

In a bowl, mix together ricotta, pumpkin, cheese, sage, basil, egg, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Fill the shells with with pumpkin-ricotta mixture.

Top with more cheese and bake shells in a thin layer of tomato sauce at 350ºF.

Additions:  None

Omissions:  None

Substitutions:

  • Parmesan cheese for pecorino-romano

Overall Rating:  Love It

Source:  Cooking Light Magazine

Two-Pepper Rigatoni and Cheese

Making macaroni and cheese from scratch is nothing new to me.  I never even tried boxed macaroni and cheese until I was in college.  I remember saying “Why would you buy boxed macaroni and cheese when you can make it from scratch?”  My mom always made it from scratch on the stove and she never baked it in the oven or covered it in bread crumbs.  Now that to me is how macaroni and cheese should be. 

That being said, this Two-Pepper Rigatoni and Cheese is not like my mom’s.  But I was willing to give this a try because it reminded me of the most delicious jalapeño pepper pasta dish I had early this summer at Amis, a restaurant in Philadelphia.   So, I thought this might be a good make-at-home substitution.  I’ll be honest, it isn’t.  BUT I have to admit that it’s probably my fault.  In typical Shannon-fashion, I used reduced-fat cheese instead of the full-fat cheese the recipe calls for.  Therein lies my problem.  If you’ve ever made cheese sauce from reduced-fat cheese, you’ll probably know that it tends to get gritty when it melts and doesn’t have that smooth creaminess that comes from real cheese.  I knew better.  Looking past that, I think I have come to decide I’m not particularly fond of pickled jalapeños.  If I were to make this dish over again, I think I would use a fresh jalapeño pepper and sauté it with the red pepper instead.  And, of course, I would use real cheese.

There are a lot of dishes that can be made into “lighter” dishes without sacrificing flavor…macaroni and cheese, in any form, should not be one of them.  Lesson learned!

The ingredients:

Prepare pasta according to package directions and drain.  Melt butter in a pan and sauté chopped red pepper.  Once softened, add the red pepper to the drained pasta and set aside.

Using the same pan used for the pepper, add in flour and milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Once milk is thickened, stir in both cheeses, pickled jalapeños, and salt.

Carefully pour the cheese sauce over pasta and red pepper.  Stir to combine and add in green onions.

Pour the pasta into a baking dish coated in non-stick spray and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.  Bake at 375°F.

Additions:  None

Omissions:  None

Substitutions:

  • Whole-wheat rotini for rigatoni (my error!)
  • Reduced-fat cheddar cheese
  • Reduced-fat 4-cheese Italian (a wedge of fontina at my store was over $13!  Yikes!)
  • Breadcrumbs for white bread

Overall Rating:  So-So

Source:  Cooking Light Magazine

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