White Lasagna

[plumtreeblossom]

Last night I made my first white lasagna. I'd been trying to come up with some hearty pasta dishes to make for beowabbit, who Does Not Do Tomatoes. I'd never seen an alfredo-based lasagna and basically came up with the concept on my own, though investigation proved that it's actually an existing and well-loved dish.

Far be it from me to actually use a recipe -- I made it with lasagna noodles, alfredo-pesto sauce, ricotta, parm, mozz, mushrooms, sauteed onions and red bell peppers, and crumbled sweet Italian sausage.

Pretty good for a freshman effort, but for future tweaking, it needs more cowbell. It's a good mild base, but could be improved by the addition of:

More garlic
White pepper (I didn't have any)
Artichoke hearts
Olives
Maybe spinach
Maybe asparagus tips

Folks over at food_porn encouraged eggplant, but I'm not a fan and I don't think he is either. I think I would swap out the sweet Italian sausage for seasoned ground beef, but I'm not sure what seasonings.

I love cooking for my sweetiedarling. If I make this again (perhaps for a pot luck?) maybe I'll have the Wabbit help so he can learn lasagna architecture. It's a fun dish to build, such that when you're done, you have the uncontainable urge to stretch out your arms and sing "TA DA!" even if you're all by yourself.

Comments

[komos.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of roasting portobellos for something like this - sliced, hit with a good olive oil and sea salt, and roasted until they've given up their moisture. Roasting the peppers will do good things, too.

Another thing that can really improve a lasagna is mixing up the cheese a bit. Never lose the parmesan, but consider a good fontina or pecorino for that extra bit of flavor. I tend not to like ricotta in white lasagna because I don't think it brings enough to the table when it's not there as a balance to the acidity of a tomato sauce.

[library-sexy.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of roasting portobellos for something like this - sliced, hit with a good olive oil and sea salt, and roasted until they've given up their moisture.

Is it lunch time yet? That sounds like a fantastic addition and I didn't even taste the original.

[komos.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of roasting veggies and shrooms, and just trying different treatments in general. ^^

[komos.livejournal.com]

And I seem to be repeating myself. Nothing to see here... move along.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Pecorino, yes, that would have been excellent.

I felt the same way about the ricotta -- that it didn't bring much to the table -- but at the same time I can't bear parting with it because it's my favorite part of lasagna. I wonder if I could jazz it up with something mixed in. But I don't know what.

[komos.livejournal.com]

If you're insistent upon it, you could hydrate some dried wild mushrooms, macerate them, and then blend the resulting paste into the ricotta. This will give the layer more interest, though it will affect the color somewhat.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Good call, and I love dried wild mushrooms. I had to look up the term "macerate." (having made an instant association with the word "masticate," which wouldn't do as a cooking technique, at least in this culture). Hmm, wonder what to macerate in?

[komos.livejournal.com]

Forgot a step, too... they'll need to be chopped at some point if you'll be blending them. ^^

[komos.livejournal.com]

Moscato D'Asti?