Butternut squash lasagna

December 10, 2008 at 6:38 pm · Filed under cooking, Experimental Fall Dinner, recipes

I’m uninspired and drained as far as writing topics go, but last week I made a very inspired dinner. Once a year, I have a vision of what I think will be a delicious food combination. I look at a bunch of recipes, none of them really suits my vision, and I eventually just wing it. Sometimes I invite people over, but with the warning that the results could be disastrous, and I cannot guarantee that they will be fed before midnight. I’ve dubbed this my annual Experimental Fall Dinner. So far, my creations have been surprisingly successful.

So here it is just for you: Experimental Fall Dinner 2008. Too bad I didn’t have the forethought to take a picture!

Linley’s Butternut Squash Lasagna

Ingredients in bold

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Brown one package of sausage, casings removed, in a skillet (I use hot Italian sausage, but whatever suits your fancy). Season with ground sage, thyme, and rosemary, if desired. Once the sausage is cooked through, remove to a paper-towel-covered plate.

Add one butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into half-inch cubes, to the skillet. Season with salt, black pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary, and stir around in the sausage drippings. Add one cup of chicken stock, cover, and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, until squash is fork-tender. Toss the sausage back in and mix everything together. Henceforth, this mixture will be referred to as the “squasage.”

In a bowl, combine a big container of ricotta cheese with about a cup of shredded parm.

Give a 9×13 casserole dish a squirt with the cooking spray. Now layer as follows:

– A little bit of squasage in the bottom of the dish

– A layer of no-boil lasagna noodles

– Half the ricotta mixture

– About 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella

– Half the squasage

– Noodles

– Remaining ricotta

– 1 cup mozzarella

– Remaining squasage

– Noodles

– Sprinkle with mozzarella

– Sprinkle with parm

Bake covered for 35 minutes, then remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes until the surface is bubbly. Let sit 10 minutes before cutting.

Serves 6-8. (Or serves 2 for dinner one night and leaves lunch for 1 for the rest of the week!)

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