Fall Recipe

I hate to cook. I love to eat, but I am always wishing there were someone else to cook my food for me. Mostly I'm just lazy and I don't want to go to a lot of trouble to make dinner. Because of this, I have found us in a food rut. I've been rotating the same meals every week and I was getting very, very tired of everything. I found a recipe for Butternut Squash Lasagna in the magazine Mother Earth News that sounded interesting so I thought I would give it a go. There was a bit of preparation involved and I'll have to figure out how to properly peel a squash, but it turned out wonderfully! It looks terrible, but I promise you it's fantastic (please ignore my dirty stove and weathered baking dish) and I wanted to share it with you:

Butternut Squash Lasagna

1 Tbs. olive oil

1 (1 1/2-2 lbs) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 inch cubes

Salt and ground pepper
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup all purpose flour*
4 cups whole milk*
Pinch of nutmeg
12 no boil lasanga noodles
2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese*
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese*

Heat oil in a heavy, large skillet over medium heat. Add the cubed squash and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour the water into the skillet, cover and simmer over medium heat until the squash is tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer the squash to a mixing bowl or food processor and mash/puree. Season the squash puree to taste with salt and pepper.
Melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add flour adn whisk for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to a low boil over medium heat and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 5 minutes. Add the nutmeg. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a 13x9x2 pan. Spread 3/4 cup of the sauce over prepared baking dish. Cover the bottom of the pan with one layer of lasagna noodles. Spread half of the squash puree over the noodles. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup mozarella cheese. Drizzle 1/2 cup sauce over the cheese. Repeat layering once more, finishing with a layer of noodles covered only by white sauce.
Tightly cover baking dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove cover, sprinkle the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses over the lasagna and continue baking until the sauce bubbles and the top is golden, about 15 minutes. Let lasagna stand for 15 minutes before serving.


*I doubled the amount for the sauce- 1/2 cup butter, 2/3 cup of flour and about 5 cups of milk because it didn't seem like a lot of sauce. By doubling it, I did have some left over, but I ensured my lasagna wasn't dry.
*I also didn't measure how much cheese I used, as my feeling is that more cheese is always better.