Four Cheese Rapini Lasagna

Ingredients:
1 lb lasagna noodles
parmesan for sprinkling

for the cheese filling:
15 oz ricotta
3/4 cup steamed rapini*
3/4 cup shredded asiago
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs

for the sauce:

1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
6 oz fresh mushrooms, roughly chopped


whole tomatoes, hand crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Boil the lasagna noodles until almost al dente. Arrange the boiled noodles in a single layer on cookie sheets until assembly. Meanwhile, stir together all of the cheese filling ingredients until uniform. Set aside. Then, heat the oil in a large saute pan and add the onions, garlic, carrots and mushrooms. Saute until the vegetables are soft. Add the tomatoes and turn the heat down low. Simmer for at least 1 hour. You can cook it longer if you have the time, the flavor improves with more cooking, but an hour yields a perfectly tasty sauce. Ladle some of the sauce in the bottom of lasagna pan. Arrange the noodles in a single layer, overlapping as necessary. Spread with the cheese mixture and top with more sauce and another layer of noodles. Repeat until the pan is full, reserving some sauce to coat the final layer of noodle. Sprinkle with parmesan. Cover in foil and bake 45 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake 15 additional minutes or until bubbly and hot. Allow to sit 5 minutes before serving.


*AKA broccoli rabe, rabe, broccoli raab, it is nearly identical to Chinese broccoli.

My thoughts:

Lasagna is always a favorite but sometimes it gets a little boring. This time we eliminated the meat sauce and used one of Matt's favorite vegetables, rapini. Rapini can be on the assertive side (some might say "bitter") but I really like it. The flavor is also tempered by the tomato and cheese.