Saturday 26 July 2014

Lasagna Roll Ups

So I'm pretty much starving to death. I had a toothache two weeks ago that required an emergency trip to the dentist. They put me on antibiotics for a week and told me to come back for a root canal. Now that might seem like a pretty routine thing to most of you, but for me, it's never routine. And anything that could go wrong did go wrong. But I'm used to that. And that's not the story. A recipe came up on my Facebook page for skinny lasagna roll ups. I had forgotten about lasagna roll ups and I sure as hell don't want to make a skinny version of them. There is nothing about eating carbohydrates that will ever make you skinny. That is an oxymoron. If you're trying to lose weight, don't eat pasta. Ever. Eat fish. Or chicken. But I haven't been able to eat for two weeks now, and I no longer need to lose weight, so I went Googling as I often do when I'm starving to death and decided to go with the Giada De Laurentis version of the roll up. Why is she so tiny and beautiful and lovely and she can also cook like God? A question for another day I guess because we're going to make her roll ups. And this isn't her exact recipe. It's mine because I think unsalted butter is shit and so on. Where she calls for milk, I use half and half. Oh, that explains why she's quite a bit tinier than me.

You'll need:
for the Béchamel sauce:
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour (can you see a roux coming on?)
1 1/2 cups or so of half and half. Start with 1 cup and thin down if necessary. You're looking for thicker than pancake batter here, but not wallpaper glue
salt & pepper to season
A pinch of nutmeg. Go easy. You don't want your dinner to taste like pumpkin pie

And for the lasagna:
12 lasagna noodles
a splash of olive oil to add into the boiling water
salt for the boiling water

And the filling:
1 pack of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of the excess moisture
1 container of ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan plus extra to put on before you put this in the oven
About 7 or 8 slices of chopped prosciutto
1 large egg beaten
salt and pepper.

1 1/2 cups of Marinara sauce (just use jarred here unless you're really into this)
1 cup of grated mozzarella (sure, use your own homemade if you made your marinara sauce)

Boil the lasagna noodles according to package directions. About 10 - 12 minutes. Drain and lay out flat so they don't stick. Make the Béchamel sauce thusly - Melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg and cream and bring just to the boil. Remove from heat. In a separate pot or in the microwave, melt 1/4 cup of butter.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the melted butter into a casserole dish. Then add the Béchamel sauce.

Make the filling. Just stir it all together and spread it onto each lasagna noodle about 1/4 inch thick. Roll up the noodle and place it seam side down into the Béchamel sauce. Spoon the marinara sauce onto the top of everything and add the grated mozzarella and parmesan and some freshly ground pepper. Cover tightly and bake for 20 minutes. Then uncover and bake for 15 minutes more until the cheese browns. Let it sit for 10 minutes before you serve it.

This recipe is so hearty and delicious. Thank you lovely Giada! Share your beauty tips!


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