Meatless Monday-Lasagna From Firenze
I am so proud to have my daughter guest posting today from Florence, Italy where she is studying. I hope you all enjoy her recipe!
Today’s cooking class!
Today in Contemporary Italian cooking we made Lasagnetta alle melanzane, quartirolo e basilico. For all you English speakers out there, that means lasagna with eggplant, quartirolo cheese, and basil! It was delicious!! We also made two different sauces to go with the lasagna! The first sauce was a raw tomato sauce, and the second was a vegetable sauce. This was definitely one of my favorites! One of the many things I love about taking my cooking courses is that on top of learning all of these new recipes that I can make for my friends and family, my food knowledge and palate continuously grow! I am trying foods I never would have tried at home! Shrimp, mushrooms, eggplant, etc.
Anyways, now that I’m sure I’ve gotten your stomach rumbling, here is the recipe, so you can start cooking!!
Ingredients:
- 300 gr (10 oz) eggplants (about half) already left 30 minutes under coarse salt to drain
- 60 gr (2 oz) grated Quartirolo cheese
- 50 gr (1 1/1 oz) grated Grana cheese
- 6-7 cherry tomatoes, dried in the oven
- 1 garlic clove
- extra virgin olive oil
- zucchinia
- small potato
- half a carrot
- 2-3 pieces of green celery
- basil
- 1 large layer of fresh pasta
Raw Tomato Sauce: Peel 3-4 San Marzano tomatoes, take out the seeds, put them in a mixer with olive oil and salt and basil, and blend them into a sauce.
Vegetable Sauce: cook the zucchini, carrot, potato, and celery in a small amount of water and a spoonful of olive oil on the stove. Once they are soft, put them in the food processor with a small amount of cooking water, 2 spoonfuls of olive oil, 1 spoonful of Grana cheese, and 5-6 basil leaves. (If your a garlic lover, you can also add some chopped garlic!)
Here is the chopped eggplant cooking, with the full clove of garlic! Yum! 
Here is the fresh pasta rectangular, with the vegetable puree, eggplant, grana, and quartirolo cheese, and 2 tomatoes! Ready to be rolled!
And here is the final product! As you can see this does not look like any type of lasagna you have ever made! Instead of making the squares, we took a rectangular fresh piece of pasta, added the ingredients and then rolled the pasta! Our teacher, called it a lasagna canoli! Very interesting I know!!! Anyways the final product was delicious and the perfect size for a nice lunch!!
Hope you enjoy 🙂
Ciao,
xoxo Regazza di Firenze!
