Meatless Monday and Bobby Flay’s Throwdown Zucchini Lasagna

Incorporating Meatless Monday into CSR business strategies encourages healthy habits for employees and the planet

Hello and welcome (back) to the Miratel blog for another Meatless Monday. We took the Meatless Monday pledge as part of our CSR business initiatives in support of reducing meat consumption one day per week to improve the health of people and the planet. Every Monday we share a different vegetarian recipe using everyday ingredients.

In honour of the upcoming Chef’s Challenge in Toronto to benefit Mount Sinai Hospital, we are featuring a recipe from event host Chef Bobby Flay’s hit Food Network show Throwdown. This Zucchini Lasagna recipe combines lasagna with a play on eggplant parmesan and comes courtesy of Carla Pallotta and Christine Pallotta of Nebo Restaurant. This isn’t a light meal by any stretch and has quite a few steps but so worth both the time and calories if you have them to spare.

Ingredients:

Marinara Sauce:
4 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 small onion, sliced
2 (28-ounce) cans San Marzano tomatoes
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
6 fresh basil leaves
Fried Zucchini:
3 cups flour
1 dozen eggs
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 cups grated Romano cheese
3 cups canola oil, for frying
6 zucchini, sliced lengthwise about 1/4-thick
Ricotta Filling:
2 pounds ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black peeper
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
2 1/2 cups grated fresh mozzarella (for layering)
Zucchini Flowers:
8 zucchini flowers
1 egg, beaten
Breadcrumbs
Canola oil, for frying

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. For the marinara sauce: Heat the canola oil in a large saucepan, add the onions, and cook until translucent. Blend the tomatoes in a food processor. With a slotted spoon, remove the onions from the oil. Add the blended tomato, salt, pepper, and basil to the pan. Stir with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 40 min.
3. For the zucchini: While the sauce is simmering, fry the zucchini. Place the flour on a flat dish. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, salt, pepper, and Romano cheese with a fork. In a large frying pan, heat the canola oil. Coat the zucchini slices in flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Fry until golden brown. Remove each piece, placing on a tray lined with paper towels.
4. For the ricotta filing: In a large bowl, mix the ricotta cheese, eggs, parsley, salt, pepper, and Romano cheese.
5. To assemble: In a 9 by 13 by 2-inch rectangular baking dish, spread 4 ounces of marinara sauce. Layer some of the fried zucchini to cover the bottom of the dish, slightly overlapping the pieces.
6. Spread 8 ounces of marinara over the zucchini. With a plastic spatula, spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture over the marinara, and sprinkle with 3/4 cups of mozzarella.
7. Repeat layering the zucchini, sauce, ricotta filling, and mozzarella, ending with 1 cup of mozzarella.
8. Cover the dish in foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove the foil and continue to cook until the top is slightly brown. Cool the lasagna for 15 minutes.
9. For the zucchini flowers: Rinse the zucchini flowers gently under running water. Pat dry. Dredge the zucchini flowers in the beaten egg, and then cover in breadcrumbs. Fry in canola oil until crispy. Sprinkle with salt, to taste. Place the flowers on top of the lasagna and serve.

This recipe for zucchini lasagna makes one 9” by 13” by 2” pan. If you are unable to get zucchini flowers you can leave them out of the recipe. A good tip to keep in mind is that you could do the majority of the prep work the day before (if time permits) as this meal is labour intensive – you would just have to wrap it well, place in the fridge and then cook when needed. Serve with a large healthy serving of raw green salad with a light balsamic or Italian vinaigrette salad to balance out this heavier main dish.

We encourage you to visit the Meatless Monday website and join us in taking the pledge to reduce meat consumption one day per week. It’s easy with simple and delicious recipes like this one. Spread the word at work to promote the value of CSR business initiatives and make your green call centre, office, factory, shop, restaurant, hotel or salon even greener.

Enjoy!

Zucchini Lasagna image courtesy of neborestaurant.com

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.