First a few announcements:
- For those of you who just read my feed and never visit my site – you probably didn’t notice: I did a site redesign this weekend! Take a look and tell me what you think!
- A Menu for Hope is in full swing, and the bids have added up to over $15,000 so far! If you’re bidding for my Artigianale Basket, though, your chances are very very high to win – so get to donating!! Prize code:EU27
Last night I went to bed at 9:45pm, the first time in months. As I get older, I start to recognize my body’s signs a lot easier. For instance, if I ever sneeze more than three times in one day? Sick. Like clockwork. I started to countdown my sneezes yesterday and decided I should sleep a little longer last night.
I desperately wanted some comfort food. The kind that warms you up from the inside. It was the type of day that makes you want to stay home, curl up in bed and scarf down an entire tray of 3 Cheese Pesto Vegetable Lasagna.
I am now used to the Lasagna Bolognese pasta sheets which are much thinner than the rippled pasta sheets popular back home. The great thing about these sheets is they usually don’t need any pre-cooking! Adjust your cooking time accordingly if you are using the thicker sheets. Check for a nice, bubbly crust.
3 Cheese Pesto Vegetable Lasagna
A traditional lasagna verde mixes spinach in while making the pasta. This recipe is a spin on a traditional lasagna bolognese, minus the meat sauce! I always throw in whatever vegetables I have on hand, sliced very very thinly. Take your pick among eggplant, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, spinach or cauliflower.
Lasagna Bolognese pasta sheets
Fresh mozzarella, 1-2 balls
Fresh ricotta, 100-200g
Parmigiano Reggiano, 50g sliced thinly
Broccoli and Cauliflower, sliced very thinly
Besciamella (Mario Batali’s recipe calls for nutmeg, but it’s optional for me)
Basil Pesto, around 200g (My recipe for Fresh Basil Pesto)
- Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Prep your vegetables, slicing them thinly and equally to ensure even cooking. Thinly slice the mozzarella and parmigiano reggiano.
- Spread a thin layer of besciamella sauce on the bottom of the glass baking pan. Layer the pasta sheets, then a layer of vegetables. Add the three cheeses, distributing them evenly on the vegetables. Drizzle with besciamella sauce and dollop the pesto throughout.
- Lay down another layer of pasta sheets, and repeat the process described above.
- After two layers of vegetables, add the top layer of pasta sheets and spread the besciamella sauce to cover them completely, add the remaining parmigiano reggiano.
- Cook for 20-45 minutes, or until the top layer is browning and bubbly.
What’s your “rainy-day/I’m sick” comfort food?
I think it is wonderful that you are able to maintain your giving spirit in spite of all the truck strikes still going on in Italy right now. I know it is a tough time there and it is inspiring that everyone is still doing their best to keep things festive.
Cheers!
@Lewis – I am really fortunate in that we don’t even have a car! I ride my bike or public transportation to work. Hopefully now that they’ve called off the strike, food will turn back to normal in the supermarkets.
The lasagna looks so good! Our New Years resolution (we’re starting early though) is to eat more vegetables and have more vegetarian meals. I’m adding this to our must try recipes!
The site looks great…has a little more sass.
Favorite comfort food: mac and cheese from scratch (with white cheddar)!
Dear heavens, this is food porn!! :)
I’m tagging the recipe and will make it soon.
My favorite comfort food is the rice pudding my mom used to make for me when I was a kid – it’s eaten piping hot, right out of the stove!
THIS is now my favorite comfort food (which was always pasta in one form or another). And so doable in the US, as using it in an “al forno” dish hides the fact the the US produced Italian cheese is so, well, NOT.
I am digging the new layout. I wonder if I could find those thinner sheets in the U.S.
Mi piace molto lasagna. My mom used to make a delicious one w/ricotta. It was time comsuming but soooo good.
I like the site redesign. Very clean and simple. I hope you slept that illness out of your system. Whatever it is that has been going around is really nasty and you don’t want it!
Beautiful lasagna! I truly understand what you mean by wanting comfort food when everything seems gloomy. I eat just about everything on occasions like that, but this time of year a steaming bowl of stew with a slice of freshly baked bread won’t hurt. Then it’s just to curl up on the couch and pop in a good movie.
Oh boy, that is fantastic. You can’t go wrong with those ingredients! There is currently a comfort food that I’m craving for and in a week when I go home my grandma will make it for me! It is a winer dish called “Sarma“. It has some turkish influence, but we eat it a lot in Croatia. It is basically a sauerkraut roll filled with ground meat, but it takes skills to make it good :)) mmmmmm, can’t wait!
I love the new site.
I don’t know what you did to your site, but it now does not crash my browser when I open it in a new tab (perhaps was a Firefox glitch?) – anyway, I’m back clicking through and commenting. Yay?
Anyway, I’m a big fan of my grandma’s chicken soup. Old Jews can really make soup, I’ll tell you what.
The site re-design looks great, very clean and nice. Love the sound of this lasagna too. Hope you’re feeling better.
Save me a slice.
I like the redesign and the photos up top are handy links, but I do miss your changing photo banner. Your photos and links on the side are gorgeous. I have been admiring them the past couple weeks or so?
Mmmm, scrambled eggs on hot buttered toast! Yesterday must have been a comfort food type of day, we had it for dinner!
I loves me some comfort food, but when I have any kind of cold the last thing I want any part of is dairy. When I’m sick, I end up eating the blandest stuff ever – so bland it shouldn’t even be mentioned next to the glory that is this lasagna… But comfort food? For those cold, rainy, foggy days when it’s gray outside 24/7? Yeah, those all pretty much involve carbs and dairy. And sugar. Mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, mashed potatoes, that kind of thing. And curl me up with a cat on my lap and a mug o’ hot cocoa and you’ve pulled me right out of any funk I was in. Hallelujah for comfort food.
When I’m feeling under the weather, “Crab Imperial,” so-called, is what I crave!
Hi, I just found this recipe after doing an online search for vegetarian lasagna. This one looks fantastic.
However, I am awful when it comes to converting metric measurements to “regular” U.S. measurements. Can you tell me what 100-200g (ricotta) and 50g is?
Thanks!
@Anne Unfortunately the US measurements are in the minority and I think using grams is actually easier than trying to figure out cups! I bought a cheap, $20 electronic scale and it’s solved all my problems.