It's easy being green: Swiss chard lasagna

All I need is a tiara! But a "Plays in the Dirt" ballcap will do (thanks, Mom!).

This bounteous bouquet of Swiss chard was destined to be a lasagna experiment. I've made lasagna with chard before, but with just a thin layer of green, and I also had asparagus in there. This time, it's two super-thick layers of chard.
I assembled this fairly late last night, so the lighting sucks, but you get the picture.

A lasagna like this couldn't be easier to make. The most time-consuming part was tearing up the chard leaves and washing them (three batches in my jumbo salad spinner). I'll sautée the stems and cook them separately for a different meal.I spread a thin layer of jarred sauce (Safeway brand vodka sauce) in the bottom of the pan and three noodles on top (no, I do not pre-boil them, and they're just regular noodles).

A few more dabs of sauce, and a crumbling of queso fresco. Thick layer of chard. More sauce. Repeat. I had to mash the whole thing down a bit to compress the layers. The top noodles are covered with sauce to their edges and the whole thing is covered with foil to sit in the fridge overnight. The noodles will soak up sauce, which obviates the need to pre-boil.

Total assembly time was about 15 minutes (including leaf-prep).

This morning, I cooked it covered at 350 for about 45 minutes, then took the foil off, sprinkled shredded mozzarella over and baked for another 10, then turned the broiler on for a minute to brown the cheese.

You can see it sank in the pan quite a bit. Just like spinach, chard loses a lot of volume as it cooks.

Et voilà!
This turned out spectacular. The sauce is quite tangy, and the chard still has a little texture and resistance between the soft noodles (the advantage of using the really big, stiff leaves). It still doesn't have quite the volume I was aiming for, so next time I will find an even deeper pan and double the chard layers. Lord knows, I've got the leaves!

Lasagna with asparagus, chard and queso fresco

This was an experiment, and let me tell you, I should experiment more often!
I had a package of queso fresco that I bought to try and then forgot about in the back of the fridge. Opened it Friday night and discovered it is quite yummy! A little bit like a dry ricotta, but tasting also like a very mild feta. Hmmmm, I thought, this would be good in a pasta dish.

Well, then I had this really fat asparagus, and a bunch of fresh chard from my garden. And half a box of lasagna noodles. I picked up a jar of vodka pasta sauce (with San Marzano tomatoes) while out walking Sophie. And that's all there is to it.
I boiled the noodles (which I broke into smaller pieces) for about 8 minutes. Put a splash of sauce in the bottom of the casserole dish, then a layer of noodles, a layer of torn-up chard, some crumbled cheese, a splash more sauce. I repeated that in the next layer and added the (peeled and sliced) asparagus stems. The top layer was sauce and asparagus tips sliced in half.

I baked it at 350 covered for half an hour, then uncovered it and put shredded mozarella on top and cooked it for another half-hour.
Wow! I wasn't sure how this would turn out. I was afraid it might be too dry, for one thing, because I didn't have a lot of sauce. But it wasn't. I think the moisture in the chard helped. The asparagus stems were still very slightly al dente, and the tips had gotten sort of caramelized.

I originally planned to put meat in this (even bought ground beef at the farmers market this morning) but I'm really glad I decided not to. It works very nicely as it is. The cheese is just salty enough that you don't need any other seasonings; you can really taste the fresh vegetables.

Lasagna may seem more like a wintry dish. but it works pretty well for summer, too!

Easy lasagna with butternut squash and spinach

The other night I had an unexpected free hour before I needed to go to the airport to pick up my guest (flight delayed), so I swung by the grocery to get some beer, cheese and crackers for us to snack on this weekend. While I was there, I thought, why not get stuff to make lasagna?

I've been craving lasagna lately, and wanted to make a big pan of it so I could freeze some for work dinners. This took about 40 minutes to throw together, and would've taken less, except the butternut squash needs time to roast. It was all assembled just in time to toss it in the fridge and head out the door.

So you'll understand why I didn't take photos of the process. But I'm sure I'll make it again.

I use a big foil roasting pan (cheap from the grocery, and reusable). I assemble the lasagna in the middle of it, using three noodles, and there's enough room around the edges so it doesn't overflow. I don't prebake the noodles, and I use jarred sauce, which really cuts down on the prep time.

The cheese is a big tub of ricotta with a bunch of shredded parmesan and a couple eggs mixed in, then a package of frozen, shredded, chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed.

The meat is 1/2 pound each of pork and veal, browned and drained.

I used half a butternut squash, cut in small dice and roasted with a drizzle of olive oil until tender and a little caramelized.

The filling goes like this: thin layer of sauce, noodles, layer of cheese, layer of roasted squash, a little sauce, noodles, cheese, meat, sauce, noodles, sauce. Cover and refrigerate to bake later, or bake covered at 350 for about 45 minutes. Take the cover off, sprinkle on mozarella, and let it bake another 15 minutes or so.

I put on so much mozarella that I ended up turning the broiler on for a couple of minutes to brown it at the end.

The bread is no-knead parmesan. The lasagna came out, the bread went in, and it was all served hot.

And now I've got 10 future dinners ready in my freezer!

(P.S. You might also try lasagna with asparagus, chard and queso fresco.)