Butternut Squash, Sage and Swiss Chard Lasagne

I am lucky to have had good success growing butternut squash this summer, which I wanted to turn into a casserole type dish to feed my family and that of a friend. The beauty of casseroles, right? This lasagne recipe is originally from Martha Stewart but of course I had to mess around with it a little more, obviously.

I used four medium sized butternut squashes to make 3 trays of lasagne. 4lbs of Ricotta, 3 whole eggs, and a very generous bunch of swiss chards. 

I followed the recipe for the most part, except I used ready-to-use commercial lasagne noodle sheets, and I added the steamed and pureed swiss chards to the ricotta cheese. Oh, and I also added a spoon or two of brown sugar when roasting the butternut.

I contemplated for a moment if frying the sage in butter was really worth washing an extra pan - the answer is YES. Don't skip it. It smells so good!

I put whole eggs in the ricotta/chards mix because I just don't believe in throwing out parts of homegrown eggs. A little extra protein won't hurt a vegetarian meal, right?

Layered as Martha instructs. Finish with ricotta and cheese. I didn't put overly much cheese in the middle layers. 

The verdict: Flavor-wise I really liked it! The chards are basically not noticeable, but you still fed your family some leafy greens. The lesson learned is that roasting the squash rather than boiling it (as I had done when I previously made this dish) makes it much drier. I would next time add more butter and vegetable broth to the squash mixture. It's a pretty filling meal, which is definitely something I sometimes miss in vegetarian recipes. Maybe I'll be ambitious sometime and make homemade pasta sheets, too?