This post will give you a look at how I come up with my recipes.
Saturday I felt like
de-cluttering my apartment. That included my kitchen: I've collected too many things in my pantry/refrigerator that I don't use and don't plan on using. While trashing old spices and some frozen lamb that Anna brought from NY in the summer, I found an open box of lasagna noodles. I also had a small bag of frozen ground pork in the freezer.
I decided to use both and make lasagna. When I went to the store to buy tomato sauce, ricotta and cheese, I saw that eggplant was on sale as well as frozen spinach. That's when I had an idea to make
Lasagna with Ground Pork, Spinach and Eggplant.Ingredients (sorry, not exact measurements)lasagna noodles
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup ground pork
1 large can of tomato sauce or pasta sauce
2 cups ricotta cheese
16 ounce bag frozen spinach, defrosted, liquid squeezed out
1 egg
salt & pepper
oil
1 eggplant, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 cup shredded cheese
Directions1. Cook lasagna noodles according to the instructions on the box
2. Preheat the oven to 350.
3. In a pan cook onion with pork, add tomato sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. In a bowl combine ricotta, egg, and spinach. Season with salt and pepper.
5. In a saute pan heat the oil, and quickly saute eggplant slices for about 2 minutes on each side.
6. In a bread loaf pan (or use whatever you like) layer tomato sauce, noodles, eggplant, ricotta mixture and shredded cheese.
7. Bake for about 35-50 minutes. Let lasagna settle for 10 minutes before cutting.
Layers of lasagna
Ready for the oven
You might wonder why the post is called A Story of Two Lasagnas. What happened, is that after I filled one bread loaf pan, I still had some leftovers, and decided to make a second lasagna. This one, however, did not have eggplant, and the top of it was quilted ;) I'm calling it "the ugly sister."
Out of the oven................
The final result
I have to be honest. I was a bit underwhelmed by the final result. I'm not sure if I did not use enough cheese or seasoning, but the taste was slightly bland. However, when I had "the ugly sister" lasagna the next day, it seemed that the flavor has improved.
Will see what the original lasagna tastes like tonight...and perhaps I'll be able to take a better photo of the final product :)
Here's a better picture as promised!
This was quite flavorful, but not as rich as if I would have used mayo. Also, ricotta doesn't really brown well, so the final result wasn't as colorful as I would have hoped. Serve this as an appetizer on a piece of toast, or have it for lunch.
