Dessert Lasagna

This week’s Blogger Secret Ingredient:  dried fruit.

I spent all week brainstorming what I would make.

Even though I had dried fruit in the apartment, I decided that I wanted to use cherries.  I made a special trip out to Trader Joe’s.  (Okay, I’ll admit, I’ll take any excuse to go to Trader Joe’s and/or Whole Foods.)

While cooking up my BSI submission, I debated going as a mummy for Halloween:

Aka, I burned myself and Dan went a little overboard with the gauze.  All the cushioning felt better, though.

It was a very stupid mistake, and I prefer to not go into the details.  Let’s just say I do not recommend testing your “mummy skills” while baking this…

Luckily, this morning my fingers felt good enough to go down to this:

But you aren’t reading this to learn about how I burnt myself, now are you?

I hope you’re reading this post to see this:

Dessert Lasagna

Ingredients

• 3/4 of a package of lasagna noodles, cooked
• 1 T butter
• 1 c. chopped walnuts
• 1 T. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c. dried cherries
• 2 c. ricotta cheese
• 2 c. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 3/4 c. powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the ricotta, granulated sugar, and lemon juice in a medium bowl.  Beat until smooth.
3. Melt the butter.  Combine with the nuts and brown sugar.  Toast in 350 degree oven for 5 minutes.
4. In a 9×9 pan coated with non-stick spray, create 1 layer of lasagna noodles.
5. Smooth over a layer of the ricotta mixture, followed by cherries and nuts.
6. Create another layer of noodles in the direction perpendicular to the last layer.  Again, spread the ricotta mixture, cherries, and nuts over the new layer of noodles.  Repeat until ricotta mixture is used up.
7. Sprinkle top layer with powdered sugar.  Cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until noodles are soft and the ricotta mixture is bubbly.

Mmm… sweet dessert lasagna.

Other dried fruits would work too, but I prefer cherries.

Next time, I might add a plain noodle layer to the top, and top it with a sweet wine sauce.  Mostly because I want to try making a sweet wine sauce.  The lasagna is pretty stellar as is, too.

I was originally going to use cream cheese instead of ricotta, but I was worried that it would be too sweet.  The ricotta definitely worked out well.

Enjoy!

And don’t experiment with being a mummy in the process. 😉

Acorn Squash & Apple Pizza

Going to bed at 8 am and getting up at 1:30 pm makes for a very weird day.  Regular food blogging shall return tomorrow!

Originally, I was planning on just throwing together a quesadilla or something for dinner, but I decided that I would feel better if I actually cooked a real meal on my first night back home.

I’ve been wanting to participate in Blogger Secret Ingredient for awhile now, so I decided that this was the week to finally submit a recipe.  Megan is hosting this week’s contest, and the secret ingredient is…. acorn squash.

And so, without further ado,  here is my recipe for

Acorn Squash and Apple Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 acorn squash
• 1 small yellow onion
• 3 small apples
• 1 pizza crust of your choice
• 3 oz. goat cheese
• 1 oz. gorgonzola
• 5 T. plus 2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp. sugar
• Salt, pepper, and cinnamon

Instructions:

1. Prepare your pizza crust.  I had this mix I needed to use up, but a handmade crust would work just as well.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
3. Start by cutting the acorn squash in half and scooping out the seeds and stringy insides.  Remove the skin.
4. Cut the squash into small cubes (1/2 inch or less).
5. Toss the squash cubes with 2 tsp. olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper, and 2 tsp. cinnamon.
6. Bake the acorn squash for 18 minutes. Keep the oven on, but increase the temperature to 450 degrees.
7. Meanwhile, prepare the onion. Remove the top and bottom, and cut the onion in half from top to bottom.  Thinly slice the onion, and cut the circular slices in half.
8. Heat 3 T. olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, add the onions, along with 1/8 tsp. salt.



9. Stir the onions regularly until they are softened and browned.  If they are sticking too much to the skillet, add a bit of water or white wine to “deglaze” the pan.
10. When the onions are caramelized to your liking, remove them from heat and place them in a separate bowl.
11. Slice the apples thinly.
12. Add another 3 T. olive oil to the skillet, and add the apples and 1 tsp. sugar when the oil is hot.
13. Similar to the process with the onion, stir the apples regularly until they are softened and browned, deglazing as needed.
14. When the apples are caramelized to your liking, remove them from heat.
15. Spread the goat cheese over the pizza crust.
16. Top with the apples, squash, and onions.  Sprinkle with gorgonzola.
17. Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes.

Enjoy!