Ginger Butternut Squash Lasagna (or when ice cream goes bad and then goes good again)

They always say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's good when, as I said, you know your way around a recipe well enough to jump in and vary it up. On the other hand this also lets you jump in and realize that the pool was far shallower than you thought that it was, and your ankles are now perhaps sprained and broken.

Half and half was on sale this last week and so was ginger, so I had an idea to make some ginger ice cream. I looked online at a few recipes and thought that I understood the basic principles. Several steeped shredded ginger in milk, then made custard and then added cream. So I figured I would just use the half and half and skip the step of adding cream later. I brought the half and half, sugar and shredded ginger (maybe a bit more ginger than the recipes called for, but I wanted it gingery) together to a simmer. It didn't look quite right, but I decided to turn off the heat and take a look at it after it'd had a chance to steep. As it turned out the acid from the ginger had curdled the half and half (it had also probably come to too much of a boil), but I wasn't sure how much so I left it to strain through a tea towel. As it turned out, it was pretty thoroughly curdled. The whey was nearly clear and I essentially had sweetened gingery ricotta.

What to do, what to do. Ice cream was out. A dessert seemed obvious, but I've never liked ricotta cheesecake and cannoli seemed more trouble than it was worth. Hmm, how about a sweet savory dish? I knew that there were some Italian dishes that used ground up amaretti cookies along with ricotta. Maybe my ginger sweet ricotta could substitute for those. After much googling I came upon this recipe. And so this initially confusing but ultimately delicious dish was born.



It's a fabulous dish for fall or winter. Rich and sweet but very satisfying.

Here's my modified version:
1 onion diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium(1 1/2 to 2-pound) butternut squash
16 oz gingered sweet ricotta
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup (lightly packed) fresh basil leaves
12 lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups shredded whole-milk mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Saute the onion in the oil over medium low heat, until caramelized. Halve and seed the squash, then bake in a 375˚ oven for 45 minutes, until soft. Scrape the flesh into the bowl of a food processor and add the onion and the gingered ricotta (if you don't happen to have an ice cream mishap, use 16oz whole milk ricotta, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon grated ginger). Process until completely smooth.

Boil the lagsagna sheets until al dente. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and sift in the flour. Whisking constantly, bring the roux to blond-brown and then add the milk. Still whisking bring the sauce to a boil and thicken it. Combine in a blender or food processor with the basil, salt and pepper.

Assemble the lasagna: sauce, noodles, filling, cheese, repeat (at the end you should have three layers of filling and four of noodles). After puting the last of the sauce on the top layer of noodles, cover it with foil and bake at 375˚ for 40 minutes. Remove the foil, top with parmesean and bake 15 minutes more. Remove, cool for ten minutes, slice and eat!