La-Lamb Lasagna

Maybe it's my Greek heritage, but I can never get enough of either Lamb or Bechamel sauce.  One of my favorite dishes, is moussaka.  Some folks refer to that as "Greek Lasagna."  As it also happens, I love lasagna.  Especially when I can load it up with veggies.

This tray of goodness is what I came up with to meld my two favorite dishes.  It's a lamb, bechamel and eggplant lasagna.  It was truly delicious, so I decided to share it with you!

I've gotten quite lazy these days, so I mix all my lasagna filling together at once.  This bowl of glop consists of riced cauliflower (which I now use in any lasagna or ziti dish I make), chopped red peppers, onions, carrots, and one large can of diced tomatoes.  I just dump the whole can in, juice and all.  The goal is to make this a very wet filling.  For cheese, I used ricotta, mozzarella (all whole milk), along with a brick of feta.  For spices, I mostly used Italian seasonings -- I had it and I am lazy, so this mix of seasonings was easy-peasy.   Being Greek and all, I also added a little extra dried basil.

Another instance of my laziness, is that I don't boil my pasta.  I use the noodles dry.  The no-bake version is cheap and easy.  And I'll also admit that I use regular noodles the same way -- and don't seem to notice any difference.

For my "Greek" version, I like to layer very thinly sliced eggplant right over the noodles.  Sure, I could dice them and put them in the glop, but I like them better this way.  They will also "weep" and add moisture to the noodles, and they add another nice horizontal layer to the mix.

Bechamel sauce is very easy to make as it is basically a white sauce.  I used a combination of butter and lard melted as the fat component (1/3 of a cup).  I then slowly whisked in the same amount of flour.  It took about five minutes of constant slow stirring, to get the color to go from pure white to a dark blond.  Yes, I gauge my roux by hair color...

The secret to a white/bechamel sauce, is to use warm/room temperature milk.  I slowly added 2 cups to the roux and mixed it well.  This was reduced (with constant stirring) to about a cup.  For spice, I added a little salt and pepper, along with a shake of ground nutmeg.  Nutmeg is the secret to adding a more "Greek" element to sauces, lamb, etc.

I poured my sauce over the layers once it was all put together.  Most no-bake recipes call for two jars of store-bought sauce.  My mixture was enough with just the filling and white sauce since my glop was so wet.  To finish,  I added a final layer of the cheese then drizzled EVOO. 

This is baked, covered with foil, at 375 for an hour.  I always put a layer of wax paper between the lasagna and foil so that the cheese won't still when I take the foil off.  Once the pan is baked, I take it out of the oven and let it cool, then either put it in the fridge or set it on our very cold back porch.  The goal is to have it completely cool so that it firms up.  I bake it a second time to serve it.  The foil comes off for the last 20 minutes.  A pan this big took 45 minutes at 375 to bake again.

We had many meals from this dish.  One night we reheated it to serve to the boys who did our sink replacement.  It also served us two more dinners and a couple of lunches.  The most expensive component of this meal is the cheese, but it's worth it.  If you grate the mozzarella yourself, you can save a buck or more, and spare yourself the additives that pre-grated cheese relies on.  The lamb I use is grass fed, and it comes from Price Rite at $6.99 per pound.  The entire tray probably cost about twenty bucks to make, and it produced many meals. The only downside, is that it was labor intensive.  I saved this for last... it took and hour to clean up afterwards!