Sunday Dinner with a bit of Italian Flair

I am having a bit of a frustrating blog moment right now. This post was supposed to occur yesterday, since it is about Sunday dinner. After typing a very good post about my goings on and creation of a fantastic Sunday dinner menu, my computer starting acting CRAZY and I lost everything. Now I am re-typing my blog masterpiece and hope that it can be as great as yesterday.

So here I ago again (saving at each paragraph)…….

In keeping with the Sunday dinner tradition, I wanted to create another theme dinner that incorporated my fresh garden fare and that was not going to take me more than hour to make. The weather has been quite muggy and cooking over a hot stove is less than desirable. I had quite a lot of basil that I harvested as well as zucchini and summer squash. So I began looking for Italian inspired recipes.

The basil smelled amazing! There is nothing like fresh herbs.

I went to my girl Rachael Ray for some quick Italian good tasting food. Love her or hate her, the girl can cook an amazing quick meal. After looking through a ton of great recipes, I settled on Caprese Lasagna. I have other recipes to share but do to my computer frustration I will share this one and post the others tomorrow.

Caprese Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk
• A few grates fresh nutmeg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 box oven-ready lasagna noodles
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• Half a bunch (about 30 leaves) basil, chopped
• 4 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Place a large saucepot over medium-heat and melt the butter. Add garlic to pan and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. S

Sprinkle the flour over the butter and garlic, and cook for about 1 minute. Whisk the milk into the butter-flour mixture and bring up to a bubble. Add the nutmeg, season with salt and ground black pepper, and simmer until thickened, 3-4 minutes.

Assemble the lasagna by ladling a small amount (about 1/4 cup, just eyeball it) of the sauce into the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish and laying 3 lasagna noodles over the sauce.

Top the noodles with a third of the sliced tomatoes, a third of the basil, 1/4 cup of sauce and a third of the shredded cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, topping the lasagna off with a final layer of sauce and shredded cheese.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake the lasagna for 30 minutes.

Remove the foil from the baking dish and bake another 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. When ready to serve, top with remaining chopped basil leaves.

This dish taste amazing as it looks. I was a little worried by how few ingredients this lasagna needed and if it would effect the taste. No need to worry because all my dinner guests loved it. Having all fresh ingredients really enhances the flavors.

What is your favorite Sunday dinner dish?

Reminder…..Mom on the Run’s Fantastic Friday giveaway will end on Friday. Get your name in for a chance to win a case of the amazing new all natural diet soda-ZEVIA!!

More recipes and a new What’s in Daijia’s Lunchbox? segment tomorrow.