Drunk and Full

This lasagna is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the vegan nor the lactose intolerant. There, you’ve been warned. It is however,  for the dinner party, the special occasion, when you want to impress your friends.

Lasagna al Pesto is from that old well I dip into – “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest” by Molli Katzen of Moosewood Restaurant fame.

Here’s a picture of the result, to whet your appetite:

You will need:

1 lb fresh spinach, cleaned, chopped
1 c minced onion
3 Tbl olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 c grated parmesan
1 c. pesto
2 lbs (4 cups) ricotta
1/4 c toasted sunflower seeds (you can toast them in a small, dry frying pan)
green lasagna sheet noodles
1 lb mozzarella, grated

Saute your onions in olive oil, in your largest frying pan, for 5 minutes. Add some salt and pepper. Throw in your clean, chopped spinach. Move it around the pan until it wilts. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, mix together your ricotta, pesto (I use the stuff I froze last summer), sunflower seeds, and half the parmesan. Add in the onions and spinach.

Now, assemble. But first, a note on the noodles. I’ve started using fresh green lasagna sheets that are made locally (for those of you in Madison – RP’s Pasta, of course!). They are not only delicious, but because they’re fresh, I don’t need to pre-boil. For this recipe, you’ll need one full package and if you have two sheets left in the freezer from a past project, you’ll need those too. If not, just re-jigger the assembly process to only use 3 layers of noodles (skip the top or bottom layer). If you do not have a source of fresh noodles, and if you can’t find green ones, just boil some regular dried lasagna noodles for a few minutes, rinse and drizzle with a little olive oil.

OK, now we’ll assemble:

Layer of noodles on the bottom of an oiled 9 x 13 pan
Spread 1/3 of the filling over the noodles
Sprinkle 1/3 of the mozzarella
Another layer of noodles
Another layer of filling
Another 1/3 of the mozzarella
Another layer of noodles
Rest of the filling
Rest of the mozzarella
Final layer of noodles
Rest of the parmesan
Drizzle with olive oil

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Remove the foil near the end.

Like I said, this dish isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s rich. Serve it in modest pieces, to a party of 6 to 8 people.

This is actually a really easy dish, especially if you use fresh noodles and if you have the pesto on hand, either from your freezer, or a brand you trust from the store. It’s just sauteing the onions and wilting the spinach. The rest is just mixing and assembly. So it’s entirely possible to make this for a weeknight dinner. If it’s just the two of you, make a half recipe in a smaller pan. You’ll still have plenty for lunch, or to freeze for emergencies.

Perfect sides are: garlic bread, salad, and roasted vegetables.

Enjoy it, and I hope you impress your friends!

Thousands of years ago, Romans took ingredients they had readily to hand – basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, and hard cheese – and ground them together. I owe them a gigantic debt of gratitude. Pesto is a staple in my house. Every summer, we make a vat of it, freeze it, and use it all year long. You probably do the same. But if not, here is a recipe to get you started.

This is what I call "pesto on the hoof," aka basil

Ingredients:

Basil leaves, about 3 cups
1/2 tsp salt
2 large cloves garlic
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp lemon juice
Olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or pecans or mixed

Wash and spin, sort of like laundry but without the soap

It's this simple

Wash and spin dry your basil. Put it in a food processor with the salt and pressed garlic and grind it up. Add cheese. Add lemon juice. While it’s spinning, add the olive oil through the top and listen for it to sound a little sloppy. Add the nuts. I like the nuts to still have some recognizable bits, so I don’t grind it that much after adding them. Throughout the process, scrape the sides down so all the leaves grind up and so all the ingredients get mixed together. Taste!

I don't measure the olive oil, I listen to it

Yum. But does it need more garlic?

We make pesto on a nearly industrial scale. It takes several hours (which is an improvement from the early days, when it took a full day). For this particular batch, we harvested three or four basil bushes (of the size pictured above), used two heads of garlic, over a block of cheese, over half a pound of nuts, and about a liter of oil. Ben picked and washed the leaves. I mixed batch after batch, mixing each batch together in a large mixing bowl. Pine nuts were very expensive this year ($32/pound), so I used all pecans. I tried one batch with walnuts and when we did a taste test, Ben thought the pecans were better.

Vat o' pesto

We let that bowl sit in the fridge for a day, so the ingredients have time to come into their flavors before we freeze it.

The final step is to top each container off with olive oil, after it has set in the freezer, to protect the product from freezer burn.

Top off the frozen pesto with a protective layer of olive oil

This is about 7 pounds of pesto, and will get us through to next summer. I use a large, sharp knife to hack off a portion from the frozen block. You need surprisingly little to be plenty for spaghetti for two. Use it on pasta, pizza, lasagna, soups. Just dip crackers or bread into it!

I said the final step was to top it off with olive oil, but of course, the final step is to enjoy the fruits of your labor and your garden. Buon appetito.