Recipe of the Week: Lasgne Italiane

Sunday, October 18 after Stake Conference I decided to make lasagne. I hadn't had real Italian lasagna since going gluten-free and I had picked up some Tinkyada lasagna noodles at My Organic Market.

First I made my ragu' sauce. I learned this recipe from one of my Italian companions while serving a mission in Italy (don't worry, it was the one who could cook)

Ragu' sauce

• 1 lbs 96% lean ground beef
• 1/2 onion
• 2 t garlic
• 1 1/2 cup peas and carrots
• 14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes
• 8 oz can tomato sauce
• salt, pepper, and basil to taste

First brown the hamburger and cook the onions and garlic. I warm up the peas and carrots in water in the microwave before draining them and adding them to the mix. Add the canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and seasonings and let simmer uncovered. If you want it to be real tasty you need to cook it for awhile. As the liquid evaporates add a little bit of water, you'll need to keep doing this periodically. Cook as long as you have time for. I cooked mine for a few hours.

While you're waiting on the ragu' you can start making the bechamel sauce and cooking the lasagne noodles. I found this bechamel recipe and it took a moderate amount of skill, but it turned out well with my low fat/gluten-free substitutions, see below, although it never browned using the margarine.

Bechamel Sauce
Recipe found here

• 4 tablespoons margarine
• 4 tablespoons {Jules GF} flour
• 4 cups skim milk
• 2 teaspoons salt

Other ingredients

• 10 oz cooked {gluten free} lasagna
• 1 1/2 cups mozzarella

Once you have all the sauces and the lasagna done you're ready to put it all together. Layer the lasagna noodles on the bottom of a 13x9 pan, cover with ragu' sauce, then add a layer of bechamel sauce, repeat until you run out of pasta or your pan is full. Then top with 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella.

What I should have done is covered the pan with tin foil and baked it for 30 min and then took the tin foil off for the last 10 minutes so it could brown, but I just put it in the oven with no cover and the cheese was way over done. Do as I say not as I do. Bake at 375 degrees.

We give it 3 1/2 stars out of 5. Over all it was pretty tasty. I think the major drawback was the gluten free pasta and I should have added more seasoning. It was rice pasta and had the frilly edges, which they don't use in Italy. If you can eat gluten I'd recommend getting the Barilla flat lasagne. It makes a world of difference.

Next time I'm going to see about making my own gf pasta (I found this Jules GF recipe, although I'm not sure how it would work in lasagna) and I'm going to add the nutmeg to the bechamel sauce (we don't currently have any).