Thursday, January 27, 2011

Flatbread Lasagna -- easy to
make, amazing results!

Some recipes that are easy and quick to make have such astonishing results you wonder if you’ve cheated the world somehow.
   You feel like looking over your shoulder while you’re eating the recipe’s result, as if someone will catch up with your craftiness and call you on it.
   Flatbread Lasagna (click for the recipe) from Food & Wine magazine is such a recipe. It takes very little time to prepare, but people will think you slaved over it for hours (lasagna is kind of notorious for that.)
   And it’s absolutely scrumptious.
   The secret ingredient is Italian sausage, which is seasoned so nicely to begin with you don’t need to spend any time in that department.
   However, the recipe calls for hot Italian sausages. Unless you like the sensation of your mouth burning out of your head, use sweet or mild Italian sausage instead like my husband and I did. Then you can serve the lasagna to the whole family.
   The recipe says to remove casings from the sausage and break up the meat while browning, but you can make things even easier and buy Italian sausage that has not been put into casings – it looks like ground beef!
   The option of using pocketless pita or naan bread is offered. I used plain naan bread, and it worked wonderfully. In Canada, you can find naan bread at Superstore.
   The recipe says to make the lasagna in a deep-dish pie plate. I didn’t have one of those, so I used a glass casserole dish that was nine inches across at the base and three inches high on the sides.
   I still didn’t have enough room in the dish for everything, though, and so I skipped one layer of naan bread, sauce, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. I finished with the final step of putting on a flatbread and topping with one cup of sauce and 1/2 cup of mozza.
   Although the lasagna is easy to make, it does take a while to bake and then cool before eating – an hour and 20 minutes total. It will give you time to clean up the kitchen and take a breather before supper starts!
   Italian sausage meet is browned in a skillet.
   Jarred marinara sauce is spread on the bottom of the plate, then topped with flatbread, sausage, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. The layering is repeated, finishing with a flatbread topped with sauce and mozzarella cheese on top.
   The lasagna is covered with foil and baked for 30 minutes. The foil is removed, and the lasagna is baked 30 minutes longer. It’s cooled for 20 minutes before serving.




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