Mushroom Lasagna

After last week's sausage lasagna posting, I got a suggestion to try Ina Garten's mushroom lasagna...it's all vegetarian and this pregnancy is leaving me in a bit of a meat lurch so I thought I'd give it a go. It was very rich and decadent...but to be honest...I missed the tomato sauce. I like the tang and bite that the tomato sauce provides to cut through the richness...it serves like the acid to the cream sauce. But not all is lost! I packed some for lunch the next day (trying to be practical) and just poured a little Rao's marinara on top - and then it was perfect!

Ina's Original Recipe can be found here...

I made some adjustments like...

• I added sauteed onions and grated yellow squash to give it more texture and to pack more veg into it.
  
• Instead of the 2 sticks of butter for the bechamel, I only used about 4 pats of butter to 1/4 cup flour and 4 cups of milk. You don't have to have a ton of butter to make good cream sauce.
  
• I did add a little ricotta and mozarella in between the layers

Like I mentioned in the previous lasagna post...the bechamel is the key to lasagna that binds together and keeping the integrity of the layers. For the mushrooms, I actually used a mix of creminis and small portabellas...and I preferred the creminis because they don't have as much or dark set of gills. I contemplated turning it into a wild assorted mushroom lasagna but ran out of headspace to ponder it. I do recommend that you buy whole mushrooms and slice them thinly yourself versus buying pre-sliced because those are too thick.

Mushroom Lasagna Recipe + Betty's Alterations :)

Olive oil and butter
3/4 pound lasagna noodles, parboiled
4 cups whole milk
4 Tablespoons butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 small yellow onion sliced thinly
1 large or 2 small yellow crookneck squash grated
1 1/2 pounds cremini or white button mushrooms thinly sliced
Ricotta, Grated Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bechamel: Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour and cook for one minute while whisking constantly. Pour milk into the butter/flour mixture (roux), add salt and pepper and continue to cook over medium heat mixing to incorporate all the components together. Whisk for 3-5 minutes until thick. Remove from heat while you prepare the other ingredients

In a pan, sauté the mushrooms and onions in a mix of olive oil and cutter until the mushrooms are soft and onions lightly caramelized. Set aside. Repeat the process with the grated squash. Mix all cooked vegetables together in a bowl and set aside.

To assemble the lasagna, spread a little béchamel on the bottom of a 7x10” baking pan, put a layer of noodles, sauce, mixed vegetables, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and then repeat until the baking dish is full. Finish off the top layer with some parmesan cheese as well.

Bake the lasagna for 45 minutes, or until the top is browned the sauce is bubbly and hot. Allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and serve hot.