Mushroom Lasagna with Béchamel Sauce

I haven't posted for a while but after publishing the coconut cheesecake recipe, I decided that it deserves to stay on the first page of my blog a little bit longer. Yes, it was that good.
But now it's time for another "that good" recipe: the creamiest ever lasagna. If you like Bechamel sauce, pasta, mushrooms, cheese and garlic, you're going to love this. It's oozing with cheesy white sauce and it's packed with juicy mushrooms. 
I don't make lasagna very often but when I make it, I eat nothing but lasagna. This lasagna was finished within 2 days just by me. It would've been finished the same day but I had to save one piece for pictures. Blogging is a hard job.

Mushroom Lasagna with Béchamel Sauce

2 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
450g mushrooms, sliced
salt

9 lasagna noodles (150g)
120g cheese (1 1/2 cup), grated

Bechamel sauce:
750ml (3 cups) milk
45g butter
24g (3 tbsp) flour
salt

1) Heat oil in a saucepan. Add onions, garlic and cook, until soft and lightly browned. Add mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid and become soft. Cook a few more minutes until the liquid evaporates. Season with salt. Remove from heat and set aside.

2) Make the bechamel sauce: In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter. Add flour and stir for a minute until smooth. Start pouring the milk and stir very quickly so you avoid any lumps. You will have to stir it constantly. Cook, over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. It might take 10-20 minutes. For this lasagna, I like my bechamel sauce thicker than usually, but it's up to you. It must be thick enough to coat the spoon. By the end of cooking, add salt. Remove from heat and set aside.

3) Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Grease a 20x20cm (8x8 inch) baking dish. Now start layering. You can layer it as you wish, but I did it this way: Bechamel sauce (enough to coat the bottom of a baking dish), lasagna noodles, half of the mushroom mixture, half of the shredded cheese, Some bechamel sauce, noodles, remaining mushrooms, noodles, bechamel sauce, noodles, remaining bechamel sauce and cheese. 

4) Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and increase the heat to 200C (400F). Bake for another 20 minutes.

5) Let cool a little bit. Don't serve it right after you remove it from the oven. It's better to cool it for a longer time because the bechamel sauce will be too runny if you serve it immediately.

P.S. It's also very good the next day. I even liked it cold! Or you can always reheat it in your microwave. 

Serves 4.

Recipe by collecting memories

Mushroom Fritters

Meaty and filling mushroom fritters. These will leave you full for a long time without making you feel heavy. Just make sure you add dill - this is the key ingredient! Oh, and don't add all the flour at once. You may want to reduce/increase it a little bit as it will depend on how long you fried onions and mushrooms. Couldn't be easier! Just a few steps and you have yummy healthy fritters. And don't forget sour cream - the more, the better.

Mushroom Fritters 

250g mushrooms, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp dried dill
Generous pinch of salt
1 large egg
50g flour
Oil, for frying

1) In a saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Fry onions until softened and golden brown. Add garlic, salt and dill. Finally add mushrooms, cover, reduce heat and let simmer until mushrooms start releasing liquid. Uncover and cook until all the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes.

2) Add egg and mix to combine. Finally, stir in flour. Mix well.

3) Heat a tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and drop 2-3 tablespoons of the batter. Flatten if needed. Fry on both sides until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Recipe by collecting memories

Balsamic Mushrooms

Balsamic Mushrooms

Olive oil for cooking

8 extra large or 400g mushrooms, chopped into medium chunks

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 

100ml balsamic vinegar
100ml light cream
Salt, to taste

Pepper. to taste

1) In a saucepan, heat two tablespoons of olive oil. Add mushrooms and garlic, toss to coat, cover and let cook until mushrooms release their liquid. Uncover and cook until almost all the liquid has evaporated. 

2) Pour in the balsamic vinegar and cook uncovered until it almost evaporates. Slowly pour in the cream and cook a few more minutes. You may want to increase the heat at this time. Season with salt & pepper and turn off the heat when there's still some liquid left in the pan.

Serve warm on toasted bread.

Makes enough for 4 slices of bread.

Recipe by collecting memories

Mushroom Pierogi

BEST pierogi you'll ever try. Challenging, but worth the effort!

Pierogi dough:*
500g flour

1 large egg, lightly beaten

240ml warm water
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp sour cream

*You will only need to make half of the recipe. Or you can also double the ingredients for the filling and freeze some of the pierogi (what I did). You should get around 60 pierogi if you make the whole batch.

1) Place flour in a large bowl. Mix in the egg, water, salt and sour cream. Mix until well combined. Knead until you get elastic, soft but not sticky dough, about 10 minutes. 

2) Place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rest while you prepare the filling.

3) Roll out the dough into 2-4mm thickness. Cut circles, fill them and pinch to seal. 

4) Boil 5-8 minutes, until floating. (I like to boil them longer as I like softer pierogi). 

Pierogi filling:

400g mushrooms, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
pinch pepper

1) Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onions and saute over medium-high heat until softened and browned. Add  garlic and mushrooms. Stir to combine. Cover and cook until mushrooms start to release liquid. Uncover, increase heat and cook until all the liquid evaporates, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.

Now you can fry your pierogi if you want them to be crispy. I browned half of them and can't really decide what tasted better. Try frying half of them and decide what you prefer.

butter, to fry (optional)
sour cream, to serve

1) Heat oil in a skillet. Place cooked pierogi into the skillet and brown both sides over medium-high heat. Top with sour cream and serve. Enjoy!

Recipe by collecting memories

Bread Pizza

Pizza has always been one of my favourite Italian dishes. Even though I love experimenting with topping ingredients and love the additions such as pineapple, pickles or blue cheese, I always  love to come back to the basics. Mushrooms, cheese, tomato sauce and some herbs is everything I need for the best pizza. However, the crust sometimes takes too much time to mix up, knead, roll out etc.  So I thought I could use white sandwich bread instead of making pizza dough. It took no time and helped me to use up the old bread. And you know what? It was so good. The crust was browned and crunchy and and the surface of the bread absorbed some of the pasta sauce. The topping was perfectly delicious and cheesy. What is more, I liked that this was divided into small portions. If you have no time but crave for pizza, there's nothing better than topping slices of white sandwich bread with your favourite pizza ingredients.

Bread Pizza

6 slices white bread
~1 cup of homemade tomato sauce*
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
dried oregano
dried basil
salt (optional)
180g mushrooms, sliced
80g gouda cheese, shredded

*My tomato sauce contains parsley, onions, garlic, pepper and a dash of olive oil so you may add these seasonings too. If there's no oil in your tomato sauce, I highly recommend adding some, or sprinkling the bread with about a teaspoon of oil before topping.

1) Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Prepare a tray with parchment paper.

2) Place bread slices on the baking paper. Top each of them with tomato sauce. Sprinkle with garlic, oregano, basil and a pinch of salt.Top with mushrooms and sprinkle with cheese.

3) Bake as long as you wish. This may take from 5 to 25 minutes. I like to bake them longer because I like my bread extra crispy and browned.

Recipe by collecting memories

Best Summer Recipes 2013

The summer has ended and I picked out the best recipes I've published these past three months. I thought it would be great to have seasonal favourites in one place so wait for another post like this one at the end of fall. I hope you will enjoy the collection and now let's light the candles, wrap ourselves in a chunky blanket, go to a store and buy a large, heavy orange pumpkin.

For the recipes, click on the titles.

BANANA BREAD

 

 

STRAWBERRY BANANA SPONGE CAKE

CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE MUFFINS

SPINACH & RICOTTA LASAGNA

MUSHROOM PATTIES IN PITTA

LEMON CUPCAKES

VEGETARIAN EMPANADAS

SUGAR PRETZELS

BAKED CABBAGE

Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is one of my favourite dishes you can make with rice. It has a creamy, rich texture and is absolutely filling. Risotto contains quite much butter which is usually mixed in lastly but I wanted to caramelize my onions in butter first. I also ommited white wine and used vegetable broth. The result was still very delicious and I really did not miss any wine. Instead I added some red wine vinegar (it was ok but you could also use white wine vinegar. I did not have any!). So this makes quite a lot of risotto. I divided this into 4-6 servings but if you are a serious eater you may consider this as 3, I think. Anyway, it's never too much of mushroom risotto!

Mushroom Risotto

3 onions
40g butter
400g mushrooms, chopped into small chunks
1 tbsp olive oil
5-6 cloves garlic
400g risotto rice, uncooked
2 tbsp red wine vinegar (I believe white would be better but this is all I had)
~2 liters vegetable stock
pinch ground pepper
salt, to taste

1) Chop 2 1/2 onion into thin strips. In a large saucepan, melt 40g of butter and add the onion. Cover and cook, over medium-low heat, until lightly browned. Stir occasionally until completely soft and caramelized. If it starts browning too fast, reduce the heat or add more butter. This should take approx. 10 minutes. When the onions caramelize, add mushrooms and mix well. Season wih salt and pepper. Cover and cook until mushrooms start to release liquid. Uncover and cook until all the liquid evaporates, stirring occasionally. While the mushroom/onion mixture is cooking, you can start preparing risotto.

2) In another large saucepan over medium-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add 1/2 chopped onion and cook until slightly softened, about 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Add rice and toast for a few minutes. Add vinegar, mix well and then stir in 1 cup of vegetable stock. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until rice absorb most of the liquid, stirring constantly. Add another cup of stock and repeat this until you add all the liquid (I did not add all the stock, I had about 1/4 cup leftovers. If you notice that your rice is cooked and soft stop adding the liquid). When the rice has cooked, mix in the mushroom/onion mixture. Remove from heat and let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Serves 4-6

Recipe by collecting memories