eggplant, pumpkin and spinach lasagna

This was inspired by Michael's post about eggplant lasagne rolls. Rolling seems like fun but the idea of all that condensed eggplant and oil in one place was a bit much for me, so I modified it a bit.



eggplant, pumpkin and spinach lasagna

This looks a bit fiddly but it's quite straightforward, took about an hour and a half from go to nom. I found it quite rich, so for me it made six serves.

filling
1 eggplant
lots of olive oil
lots of salt
lasagna sheets
1/2 butternut pumpkin
1/2 bushel spinach


pesto
pinenuts
handful of spinach
lots of olive oil


tomato sauce
5 - 6 tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato soup
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp basil
salt and pepper

24x24cm or 9.5x9.5inch (ish) baking pan

method
Peel the eggplant and slice it thinly, really really thinly. Salt both sides with a lot of salt, and leave to sit for ten minutes. Then start frying the eggplant, in lots of olive oil, until each side is browned. Drain and pat off the excess oil.

Peel and deseed the pumpkin, then cook and mash. Meanwhile, was and roughly chop the half a bushel of spinach.

Pound together half a cup of pinenuts, with a handful of spinach. Drizzle olive oil into the mortar as required.

Dice the tomatoes. In some olive oil, fry the oregano, marjoram and basil. After a minute, add the tomatoes and the tomato soup, as well as the salt and pepper. Reduce the heat, and leave to simmer for half an hour, stirring occasionally, until the tomato has reduced to a sauce.

putting the lasagna together
Spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce across a square pan, carefully covering the entire base. Layer two lasagna sheets (or however many you require to cover), and spread the pesto evenly across these sheets. Place a whole lot of eggplant on top of the sheets, reserving three or four slices if you can. Drizzle a small amount of tomato sauce across the eggplant, and layer two more lasagna sheets on top.

Spoon the pumpkin onto this layer. Layer another two lasagna sheets, and spread some of the tomato sauce across the sheets. Throw in the spinach, cover with tomato sauce, and cover with two lasagna sheets. Spread the remaining eggplant atop the sheets, and pour the remaining tomato sauce over the whole thing.

Bake at 210C for 40 minutes.

This was fairly oily, so it was refreshing to serve it with a fresh salad (and some potato gems).