Vegetable Lasagna with Mornay Sauce

After I left the home made pasta to air dry I started making the lasagna. I wasn't sure where I was going with this until I scrounged through the fridge to see what veggies I had that would work.  

Crimini mushrooms, a leek, an heirloom tomato, ricotta and Parmesan cheese, sounds like lasagna fix-ens to me.

Let's get busy

First thing I did was peel the tomato. Dunked it into hot boiling water for a few minutes, then into cold water and the skin slipped off as slick as can be.

While the tomato was in hot water, the leeks got rinsed and chopped.

Heated up the skillet and added some butter and olive oil, 

then added the leeks.

Poor nekked tomato.

I sliced the tomato into thin slices and removed the seeds and tomato snot, then laid them out on paper towels to drain a little. I wanted them pretty dry.

The mushrooms then got cleaned, sliced and added to the almost finished leeks.

While the mushroom leek thing was going on I started on the sauce. I made a roux using 4 tablespoons of butter that was melted in a saucier and added 4 tablespoons of flour. Whisk, whisk, cook, cook. 

Cooked the flour and butter a few minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste. I used the same flour that I used to make the pasta.

Four cups of milk was whisked into the roux. 

Watch it closely. I switched to a rubber spatula and stir, stirred it at a simmer to thicken.

Add a half a cup of Parmesan cheese to the sauce. This takes it from a Béchamel sauce to a Mornay sauce. 

Place a little sauce in the bottom of the lasagna pan.

I cooked only a couple of pasta sheets at a time. Since they were fresh sheets it only took them a minute to cook.

Place one layer of pasta on the bottom of the pan, and top it with some sauce.

At this point I had already added two more pasta sheets to the boiling water. I used the strainer you see in the background to drain and transport the pasta sheets from the boiling water.

Start layering the veggies. I placed some of the mushroom leek mixture on top of the sauce. On top of this went some ricotta cheese and some shredded Parmesan and another layer of pasta and sauce.

This is the middle layer, the only layer that had the tomatoes.

On top of the tomatoes went another layer of ricotta and Parmesan cheese and another layer of pasta and more sauce.

Another layer of the leeks and mushrooms and cheeses went in. That was topped with more pasta, sauce and cheese. Whew!!! done.

All in all there were layers of sauce, pasta, sauce, veggies, cheese, pasta, sauce, veggies, cheese, pasta, sauce, veggies, cheese, pasta, sauce, cheese. 

Covered it with foil and baked at 400* for about 45 minutes until it was hot and bubbly. For the last about 6-8 minutes I took the foil off and let it bubble some more and to brown the cheese a little. It could also be placed under a broiler for a few minutes to brown.

My reward.

And that's that.

Comments

[shawn martin]

Yer killing me here.
That's some seriously good looking grub.

[koko]

Just add this your list of what you want when y'all come visit. ;-)
I know you are staying low carb. I've heard of people making lasagna using thin slices of grilled zucchini or grilled eggplant in place of the pasta. I'd like to try that just because it sounds so delicious.

[shawn martin]

I like to use dehydrated zucchini chips in place of pastas, and potatoes. (Eggplant sounds interesting, too)