.salmon asparagus lasagna.

A couple weeks ago, I had a little food challenge here where I had people leave the three ingredients they'd like to see used in a dish. The winning ingredients were salmon-asparagus-fresh mozzarella. I thought about it awhile and decided to try making a spin on lasagna. Here's the dish I came up with!



CHEESE FILLING:

Ricotta cheese. Don't use this big of a container. I had tons leftover.
Put it in a bowl.

Break in one egg.
Add salt and pepper.

Grate 1 cup fresh parmesan cheese. Add to bowl.

Cut up about 4-5 asparagus spears. I cut them at a diagonal for visual interest.
We need to blanch these so put a pot of water on to boil.

Dump the asparagus into the hot water and let boil for about 3 minutes. Pull out using a serrated spoon and dumping them immediately into a bowl of ice water. This will stop them from cooking.

Add the asparagus to the cheese mixture. Stir everything together.
Set aside.

I wasn't sure how the sauce would cook these noodles (when I make normal lasagna I don't pre-boil my pasta). Go ahead and cook them according to the package and set aside.



LEMON DILL SAUCE:

Mince a few cloves of garlic.

In a saucepan, heat some olive oil. Add the garlic and 1 tsp dill weed. Saute for a minute to release the flavors.

Add 1/4 cup lemon juice.

In a bowl, mix together 4 cups milk and 1/2 cup flour. Whisk well to get rid of all the lumps.

Pour the milk/flour mixture into the saucepan. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken.

It should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Add 1 Tbsp butter and stir in. This will give the sauce a little richness in flavor.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside.

Take salmon fillets and using your knife, cut at a 45 degree angle. We want really thin slices of salmon here. Set all the salmon slices on a plate. We're ready to start putting everything together!

Take your baking pan and put some of the sauce on the bottom.

Put down some lasagna noodles.

Put down a layer of thinly sliced salmon.

Use a spoon to spread out some of the ricotta cheese/asparagus mix.
Repeat the process until your pan is full. SAUCE - PASTA - SALMON - RICOTTA

Take 1 lb of fresh mozzarella cheese and grate. If you're working with a cheese like this that is really soft, put it in the freezer for about half hour. This will firm it up a little, making it easier to grate.

Top the lasagna off with the cheese.
Put this in the oven at 350* for about half hour or so.

What you're looking for is a wonderful golden top. Pull from the oven and let sit for about 5-10 minutes before serving. This will help everything firm up a little.
Cut and serve. I made caesar salad to go with this.
A wonderful variation! I made enough lasagna to make two so one is in the freezer waiting to be cooked at a later date. Enjoy!

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_59ffssq5ck

.grilled vegetable pasta salad.

This is a wonderfully light, springy/summery type pasta salad that isn't the traditional pasta salad.

I got the recipe out of a Pampered Chef cookbook. I adjusted it a little. The original recipe calls for grilled tofu, but I omitted that and added a couple new things.


First you want to start with some Rotini pasta. Boil in salt water according to the directions on the box. When it's done, drain in a colander and rinse well with COLD water. The cold water will keep the pasta from sticking together. Allow to set and drain off the water.



Dump into a bowl.

I cut thick pieces of zucchini and yellow squash. Cut asparagus stalks in half, and cut up some bell pepper. The recipe doesn't call for red onion, but I added it anyway because I like onion.. lots!



Make sure you cut the onion thick. You can use whatever mushroom you want. These are baby portabello. Aren't they so cute??? So go ahead and skewer the veggies.




Brush lightly on both sides with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.















Place on a hot BBQ grill and cook, turning often so as not to burn your veggies, until everything is nice and tender. Remove from the grill.

Cut your grilled veggies up into bite-sized pieces.



Add to the bowl of pasta.

Drizzle with Balsamic dressing and grate fresh parmesan cheese on top (about 1/2 cup). Season again with salt and pepper, and tarragon.


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_47dpr4xcgm