I have been planning to make pumpkin lasagna for a while now. My past experiences with pumpkin/squash have been pleasant and successful.  (Pumpkin Spaghetti, Pumpkin Kibbeh, Pumpkin Bread and Pumpkin Ravioli)

Last week my mom came to visit and brought with her a present: A lovely butternut squash. I researched some recipes online, and found some interesting variations:

http://holdtheonions.net/2009/12/02/pumpkin-lasagna/

http://whatscookingmexico.com/2008/11/26/pumpkin-lasagna/

I really didn’t want the flavor of the butternut squash to be overpowered by sausage or spinach (Even though I am planning to try it with spinach next time). So I ended up improvising:  spicing up the squash (right amount of salt, pepper, nutmeg, sage, garlic), mixing it with my homemade ricotta, making plenty of bechamel sauce and not forgetting the other cheeses involved (Mozzarella and Parmesan).

Some people are intimidated about using pumpkin/squash in their recipes.  The easiest, and fasted way to puree a pumpkin/squash is by peeling, chopping, and steaming it (20 minutes and the flesh becomes soft & ready to puree).
Usually we need to drain as much water as we can from the pureed pumpkin, but in this case, the moisture would be useful to help cook the lasagna sheets.

Ingredients:

- Lasagna Box (I used spinach lasagna)
- 2 cups pumpkin puree
- 2 cups of ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- 1 onion diced
- 2 garlic cloves diced
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp dried sage
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- salt to taste (depends on the sweetness of your pumpkin)
- fresh mozzarella and Parmesan for layering  and topping the lasagna

Bechamel Sauce:
- 2 tbsp of butter
- 2 tbsp of flour
- 1 liter of warmed milk (full cream or light, it’s up to you)
- salt, nutmeg and white pepper to taste

Preparation:
- Butter or spray 2 medium sized rectangular oven safe pans

- Prepare the bechamel by melting the butter in a sauce pan, add the flour and whisk until it gets a nice bronze color. Add the warmed milk slowly and whisk to prevent lumps. Finally add the spices and turn off the heat as soon as the sauce starts thickening

- Sautee the diced onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil until transluscent

- In a medium bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree, the onion and garlic mixture, ricotta, Parmesan and all the spices listed above.

- Pour a few ladles of bechamel mixture into your pans to cover their bottom, then layer the lasagna sheets.
pour some of pumpkin mixture to cover the sheets, few ladles of bechamel sauce then the mozzarella cheese.
Repeat with another layer of lasagna, pumpkin, bechamel and cheese.
Finally, one more layer of lasagna sheet, and this time only cover it with the rest of the bechamel sauce, finish up with plenty of mozzarella and some grated Parmesan (to give it that amazing golden color)

Put the pans in the middle rack of your preheated oven, cover with aluminum for the first 30 minutes, then remove the foil and let the cheese get a nice color.

Buon Appetito!

As usual, the cannelloni tray was almost over before we even remembered to get the camera! I’ll might be able to take a shot of the lasagna as it leaves the oven though.
Above are some pics of the butternut squash we used instead of the pumpkin.

Finished the meal with some Chocolate & Banana Cake and some Turkish Coffee (Lebanese).

I’m FULL

Pita bread, a little ricotta and some red rose jam. Wrap it up and eat it with a cup of hot java in the morning.

Oh, did I mention that Ricotta is the same as the Lebanese “Areesheh”? Crazy Italians!

In fact, I was surprised when Pia suddenly said: “it’s done!”

Well, we didn’t have time to take a picture, so maybe we’ll add that later. But here’s the recipe:

Warm up the milk until it’s almost (NOT) boiling. Drop some white vinegar in it. Turn off the heat. Fish out the Ricotta

Pia will have add the details (and hopefully some pics later).
Pia says:
I used 4 liters of milk and 1/4 cup of white vinegar

For more information on using the Ricotta, please check my next entry

You should know that while Mascarpone is abundantly available in Italy, it’s pretty expensive in Lebanon. The 200gr box costs about 17,000LBP (~12USD) in the supermarket!
So, how do you make Mascarpone? Nothing to it:

You get some heavy cream or whipping cream (liquid, not the powder stuff), bring it to a simmer (before boiling point), add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice. After that you’ll need to drain the water out of the cheese, and you’re done!

We didn’t have a cheese cloth. I remember my mom and grandma using the white pillow casing for draining water out of Laban (Yogurt) to make Labneh. I did suggest this, but I guess we don’t have any white pillow cases. Anyway, we used coffee filters and voila: the best Mascarpone I’ve ever tasted!

Now, what to do with it?
A thousand things:

• spread it on toast with jam on top
• mix it with honey or Nutella for a delicious snack
• mix it with some Marsala wine (or rum) and use it to top fruit salads
• etc…

Now, I have a couple of favourite recipes for Mascarpone: Pizza with Mascarpone e Speck, and of course Tiramisu. We got some speck and I couldn’t wait to put it on a pizza, so we just ate them in a baguette. I guess I’ll have to post another entry about the Tiramisu in a bit. It’s still in the fridge from yesterday and I can’t wait to get a taste. Maybe I can get Pia to take some pictures before we devour it with family and friends.

I’ve been eating Spaghetti ala Bolognese for as long as I remember. Well, I thought I have anyway. After I got married though, I truly tasted the Bolognese sauce for the first time (as it should be) and it was even greater.
Well, today we wanted to go to Bologna to taste the real thing. We took a train from Rifredi train station (in Florence) at about 11:30am and got there shortly before 1PM. An easy ride, and we had some time to study what parts of the meetings we missed this week.
Arriving at the train station we did what we customary do as soon as we get to a new city: get the bus tickets. The lady at the tourist information office almost laughed at us, saying we should simply walk over to the center of the city. We got a free map from the information office and waited about 10 minutes for the bus that goes to the center anyway.
We spent a few minutes in the center near the Neptune fountain then quickly decided to go get some food!
We found a nice cozy place (Pietro’s Trattoria) we read (on some blog) it had good food. Pia had the Tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce, and I asked for some Large Raviolli. Well, the tagliatelle was good (as one would imagine), and the raviolli were indeed large, all three pieces! And the wine was simply great. I’ve been drinking Chianti and other Tuscan wines for a while, but this was truly wonderful. It’s a shame we didn’t get any with us, but I forgot to ask for it when we had to leave (some Dutch guy who was behind us struck a conversation with me right after after lunch).
After lunch we strolled around the center, saw the hordes of university students with weird dresses and gothic look filling the streets. It was truly disturbing!
Finally we went back to the center and waited for an hour or so for our train. We tried to find a bus back to the train station, but an old lady looked at us funny and explained (in Italian) that it’s about 500m away, only one bus stop anyway. Well, we walked over and took the train back.
A nice day all in all, I should have ordered the Spaghetti ala Bolognese myself. Maybe next time!

Menu di oggi (today’s menu):

- Primo: Cannelloni con ricotta e spinaci (Spinach & ricotta cannelloni)
- Secondo: Bistecca e ruccola (Steak on a bed of arugula)

We didn’t actually have a salad, but it was too much to eat already.

The recipes are truly simple.

For the primo: We got a box of cannelloni from the supermarket (250gr). We also found a plastic box of spinach all cleaned, cut and ready. Now that’s convenient
On top of that, a 200gr pack of ricotta cheese actually costs less than Labneh. So put that with the spinach and mix, then stuff it all in the canneloni (do not pre-bake those) Pia: season with salt and pepper to taste, also some extra virgin olive oil here to bring the mix together.

Now for the “hard part”, make some “roux”, mix with milk a bit of mascarpone (we had this laying around) and season with salt and pepper.
All in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. Wow! We had half at lunch and I finished off the rest earlier in the evening.

Pia adds: Abdallah missed the fact that I added some grated Parmigiano Reggiano to both the sauce, and on top of the dish before sending it to the oven. It gives a nice color and a wonderful extra taste.

As for the secondo: well, it’s a piece of steak. Season it with some salt and pepper. Put some extra virgin olive oil in the pan (no idea why!) and put the steak there for a couple of minutes. Done!

Of course, just doing the above may give you the worse meal ever. But with my wife, it tastes and looks great. She makes it sound so easy. Heh!

Check out the pics below. And let me know how lucky I am.

“When it rains, it’s definitely time for soups and stews!” says Abdallah.

Today it rained in the morning,  so I decided to cook something special for my dear husband.
It’s been three weeks now that I am cooking almost everyday. The COOP is near, and I ‘m managing with the ingredients here.
So far we’ve had: Tawouk, Mjaddara, Riz w Fasouliah, Balila, Fasouliah Bzeit and Tabbouleh (without mint & bulgur). But we were still craving for stews with rice, and Abdallah had mentioned earlier craving for ‘Aleb Khodra’ (Lebanese vegetables stew).  I had found earlier in the frozen section of the COOP, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables for Minestrone*, and I thought  I could give this traditional italian dish a Lebanese twist

Meat, onion, tomato sauce and paste, pepper and oregano… and cooked rice.

Minestrone: Thick Italian soup made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.

My Grandmother and mother were coming to have lunch at our place last week.
It all happened the last minute, I was cleaning the house and preparing many things… I was nevertheless  able to make a decent meal.
I cooked a chicken and potato casserole (with wine and mushroom) and even made a delicious banana cake. But what about salad?  Granny loves cabbage! and that’s how the idea of  this combination came out:

Ingredients:

• Cabbage (mixture or green & red cabbage) julienned
• Carrots shredded
• Avocado (cut to cubes)
• Lemon Juice
• Olive oil
• Parmesan shavings
• Walnuts crushed
• Salt & pepper to taste

Preparation:

Mix the cabbage and carrots together and add the lemon juice, salt & pepper and olive oil.
Serve them in a big salad plate, distribute the avocado cubes evenly on top.
Use a potato peeler to make Parmesan shavings to garnish the salad.

Bon appetit!

I decided to cook again the recipe that my husband liked a lot last time, Pumpkin pasta with my own twist this time.
This Pumpkin weights about 4kgs. I only used half of it for this recipe.

Pumpkins

Ingredients:

• 2 kgs  Pumpkin  peeled, seeds removed & cut to cubes
• 1 pack of spaghetti pasta
• 2 onions diced
• 1 clove of garlic
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon (goes really well with pumpkin)
• 2 cubes of chicken stock (not liquid, the pumpkin contains enough water)
• 1/4 cup of white wine (whatever is available)
• 2 tbsp of pine nuts for garnish
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Preparation:

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan, then add the onions on medium heat for 5 mns or until they become translucent.
Add the garlic and stir for one minute, then add the pumpkin, salt, pepper cinnamon and close the lid and let it simmer for 25 minutes or until the pumpkin becomes tender.
At this stage you can prepare the pasta by adding the pasta to the salted boiling water,  and cook it according the package instructions.
Now we can add the wine to the pan and the stock cubes after splitting them to pieces and stir until they dissolve
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve the pumpkin and the pasta together and garnish with pine nuts

Hope that you will enjoy this recipe, I promise to post a photo of the dish soon.

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