Meatless Monday with Lazy Florentine Lasagna

Welcome (back) and thank you for joining us for another Meatless Monday. As a green call centre, we support the Meatless Monday movement in support of reducing meat consumption to improve personal and planetary health.

Do you love lasagna but don’t have the time to prepare such a complicated meal? Our recipe today for Lazy Florentine Lasagna is a delicious and healthy vegetarian version simplified making it much less time-consuming. Florentine signifies a béchamel sauce and a green like spinach, kale or swiss chard. This flavourful non-tomato sauce version of the Italian classic comes courtesy of the Food Network Diva and daytime talk show darling Rachel Ray from The Rachel Ray Show. Now, let’s get cooking.

Ingredients
• Salt
• 1 pound wavy edge lasagna noodles, broken into irregular pieces
• 1/4 cup EVOO – Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced or chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced or chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 1 bundle green or red Swiss chard, Tuscan kale or 1 pound spinach leaves, stemmed, leaves halved lengthwise then thinly sliced
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 slightly rounded tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• 1 cup Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1 cup Fontina cheese, grated

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°F. Boil water and salt it, cook pasta to 2 minutes just shy of al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup starchy cooking liquid before draining.
Meanwhile, heat EVOO in a skillet over medium high heat. Add mushrooms, brown well then add onions, garlic and thyme, and season with salt and pepper. Cook to soften onions then wilt in greens, deglaze the pan with wine, reduce heat to low. While mushrooms cook, in a saucepot over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour, cook 1 minute then whisk in milk. Bring to bubble, season sauce with salt and pepper. Let thicken, season with nutmeg to taste.
Drain pasta and combine with mushrooms, greens and a little starchy cooking water. Transfer to a baking dish or casserole, pour the white sauce over top and cover with cheese. Bake until bubbly and brown, 20 minutes or so.

This delicious meal will yield four to six servings and can be adjusted to feed a crowd. This is the perfect quick fix meal to make any day of the week and not just on Meatless Monday. This dish is not as rich as it seems – the béchamel is rather light, and for a healthier twist you can substitute whole wheat lasagna noodles instead of the traditional semolina flour lasagna noodles which adds more fiber to the dish.

In a nutritional sense, this is a complete meal because it contains protein, vegetables and starch. You can increase the veggies by serving with a balsamic vinaigrette salad.
If you haven’t already, we encourage you to visit meatlessmonday.com to learn more. Join the movement and promote taking the Meatless on Monday pledge to co-workers and make your green call centre, office, factory, shop or salon even greener.

Enjoy!