White Lasagna with Roasted Vegetables

The Roasted Vegetable
Andrea Chesman
Harvard Common Press (2002)
ISBN 1558321691

This book has been hanging around the shelves quite a while, and has always put me off a bit because it has no information or recipes using the brassica family. My experience is that broccoli, cauliflower, and relations roast up especially well, so it's odd not to find them here.

This is my second outing with this book, and a very successful one. We both really liked this lasagna. It's a pretty standard white lasagna, with roast veggies as the filling: red bell peppers, eggplant, fennel, leek. In the end, I thought some mushrooms would have been an nice addition; DH thought that some black olives would have been nice.

While the veggies roast, you make up a panful of a garlic-scented bechamel sauce, adding a goodly slog of white wine and some chopped fennel leaves at the end.

To fill the pan, you start with a bit of the sauce. Then, three times, you layer 1/4 of the lasagna noodles, 1/2 cup sauce, 1/3 of the roasted veggies, and 1/2 cups Parmesan. Top it all off by a final layer of noodles, the rest of the sauce, and another 1/2 cup of Parmesan. Bake covered at 350F for 30 minutes, then for another 10-15 minutes uncovered. (My lasagna took a bit longer uncovered to get a nice bit of browning.) Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

This post is linked to this week's Cookbook Sundays.

This week in the kitchen

Monday/12-Mar-12: Today's excitement has been the new cat in the house; we've brought Oscar home. Didn't feel all that much like cooking, so made lasagna, as if that were a no-work dinner. Actually lasagna's not hard at all, just time-consuming. This was White Lasagna with Roasted Vegetables (RoastedVeg, p178; cookbooker). Served with a simple, big salad of mesclun, and that was dinner. As I serving the salad, I noticed a bit clod of dirt/mud on my plate and then noticed that the vinaigrette was a bit, um, muddy colored. Ed took a taste and found it all too gritty. So we plopped the lettuce back in the salad spinner and gave it a good wash. Made a new vinaigrette and started again.

Tuesday/13-Mar-12: For dinner, I did a very loose interpretation Dinde Mangue Paprika Allégée (Light Turkey-Mango-Paprika), a French recipe from the web. And quite good it was, if not reproducible. Followed by a nice salad of mâche with shredded beets.

Authentic French Bread (out of head) on overnight.

Wednesday/14-Mar-12: Well, now, that was a surprise. The bread is brown instead of white. I used the Type 65 (bread) flour that I bought on the open mill day. It looks white, but the bread is definitely brown. And good.

Shopped today. No basil to buy, but they did have sorrel. Not that we need it, but it came home with us anyway.

Dinner started with the big coeur de boeuf tomato I bought last week and now lovely ripe, with slices of mozzarella and a sprinkling of chopped chives. Then there was Haddock with Green Pepper Sauce (MC), with cod instead of haddock, because that's what there was. I made a half recipe, but all the sauce—tasty but too much; the rest will appear later. Plus a side of Ed's favorite, orzo. And followed by grilled grapefruit halves. My, my, those Ruby Red grapefruits I bought last week are seriously good, very juicy. Sprinkled with brown sugar and a slog of kirsch, then under the broiler for a while. I thought the sugar might caramelize, but it melted as soon as it touched the juicy flesh. Nevermind.

Yogurt on overnight.

Thursday/15-Mar-12: Today's expected lunch out didn't come off, and what I first picked to make for dinner didn't work because the cupboard was bear of coconut milk. How did that happen? Instead, an old fallback, Artichoke Spaghetti (Art, p59), with some roasted red bell peppers from a jar needing to be used up tossed in. Then a very plain salad.

Friday/16-Mar-12: Steak-frites with Sally and Mike and Eric in Lèsignac. Only fruit in the evening.

Saturday/17-Mar-12: We had our main meal at midday today, since we went to a movie in the early evening. (After which, since neither of us were feeling peppy, we didn't join friends at a local Irish bar for a St. Pat's day celebration.) Lunch was Salad with Smoked Chicken and Peas (MC) followed by a square each of lasagna, which kept quite well.

Sunday/18-Mar-12: Dinner was Potato-Crusted Chicken with Olives and Red Wine Sauce, a recipe hanging around for quite a while in my 2BTried MasterCookbook. It was good too, although wrapping the chicken breasts in potato didn't work as it ought to have. Stacked on top and under was more like it. Served with broccoli and the sauce left from Wednesday's fish, a good combination, as expected

Progress on goals
This week: #1 COOKBOOKS: yes, #2 BREAD: yes, #3 SOUP:no, #4 MIDDAY: yes, #5 VEG/FISH: 3
This month: #6 PASTA:no

Curried Roasted Squash Soup

The Roasted Vegetable
Andrea Chesman
Harvard Common Press (2002)
ISBN 1558321691

This book was a gift from a friend way back when roasted veggies started to become trendy. It's the place I store all the roasted vegetable articles I save. I pick it up occasionally when I have a glut of some veg needing to be used, but never seem to find anything that catches my eye. Strangely, Chesman completely ignores cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc., which is amazing to me since this family really takes well to roasting.

I'm also working through a sack of butternut squash, overflow from a friend's garden, so Curried Roasted Squash Soup here looked like a good bet. Butternut squash is really not my favorite—heresy, I know. Especially in a soup, I don't like the texture and I don't like the sweet taste. That said, this really wasn't a bad soup at all. And it's really simple to make using a staff mixer rather than a blender.

You start by roasting the squash. I did this earlier in the day, since we were out for the afternoon. The roasting could even be done the night before, I expect, then the soup would be quite quick to finish off.

When you're ready to make the soup, sauté some curry powder, minced ginger, cumin seeds, and red pepper flakes. When these are smelling really nice, add a lot of minced garlic. When the garlic softens, in a minute or two, add chicken or vegetable broth and the flesh of the roasted squash. Use your staff mixer to purée the squash (or do this in your regular blender in two or more batches). Stir in coconut milk and a goodly slog of lime juice, and heat until hot. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. The recipe calls for chopped cilantro to be stirred in just before serving. That's out of season right now, but I think it would be a nice addition.

My squash was a bit small (2#9oz vs the 3-4# asked in the recipe), but I used all the ingredients for flavor. Also, I probably doubled the amount of broth to make a thinner consistency. Result: a nice soup for a cold evening.

This post is linked to this week's Cookbook Sundays.

This week in the kitchen

Monday/9-Jan-12: Because we went to a movie this evening, we had our main meal at midday (yay!). We had most of the leftover carrot clafoutis and a big salad. Ed chopped up our usually lunchtime fruit and added a handful of broken walnuts. I tossed in some dried cranberries for color and added a squirt of lime juice. Good stuff.

Stopped at the boulangerie in Massignac on the way to a movie in Limgoes; picked up a pain ordinaire and a small, plain Three Kings cake—still in the shops even though Three Kings' Day has past.

Tuesday/10-Jan-12: Dinner was Chipotle Meatballs (from the web; cookbooker), served over polenta. Have 6 meatballs left for another meal (into the freezer). Followed by a salad. Then a slice of the Three Kings cake I bought yesterday. Where does the luck go when you find the charm on cutting into it? The crown was too small for either of us.

Wednesday/11-Jan-12: Tonight was one of those dinners where you spend a bit of time on prep and then everything gets done in ten minutes at the end. For a main, there was Saumon mariné à l'indienne (from the web; cookbooker), a French interpretation of Indian food, which was better than expected. Accompanied by about a half recipe of Cabbage with Peas (MJ1, p105) and of Potatoes with Sesame Seeds (MJ1, p114). The cabbage should have served two, but I've got another serving in the fridge; maybe for an Indian-biased cabbage slaw? Finished off the Three Kings cake. Good thing that's a once-a-year treat.

Thursday/12-Jan-12: Lunch at Lèsignac today, so nothing much happened in the kitchen this evening. The meal was steak-frites, good, but not our usual sort of thing. One of the bowls in which the frites were served was from the same pattern as our "new" salad plates and soup plates from the charity shop!

Friday/13-Jan-12: Dinner was Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Walnuts (KnowHow, p383), the first of the tagines I've made from this book. (Only one preserved lemon left. Do I make more, I wonder?) Served it as a stew, rather than over rice. Very tasty. We already had birthday cake next door before hand, so it was kind of a backwards dinner.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/14-Jan-12: Dinner was Curried Roasted Squash Soup (RoastedVeg, p83; cookbooker). Butternut squash isn't my favorite, but this wasn't bad. And a salad for after. Simple dinner.

Sunday/15-Jan-12: Sunday morning, nobody wanted to go to the boulanger yesterday afternoon or this morning. Buckwheat Bread (BigGerman, p38) in the ABM.

Continuing with the buckwheat theme, there was Buckwheat Noodles with Mushrooms and Sour Cream (web, cookbooker) for dinner. No soba noodles to be found in the shops, so I made buckwheat noodles instead, very loosely following From-Scratch Buckwheat Noodles (GreeneGrains, p74; cookbooker). Then a salad. Then some chevre.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 COOKBOOKS: yes, #2 BREAD: yes, #3 SOUP: yes, #4 MIDDAY: yes, #5 VEG/FISH: 4
This month: #6 PASTA: yes