A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and her husband from Brisbane were in Melbourne for a week. Being the clever academics that they are they both had a full week of conferences, lectures and endless meetings to attend. Towards the end of the week they were both up for some home cooked food, so rather than catch up at a restaurant they opted to come over to our house for dinner.

What to cook for an astrophysicist and a doctor who are craving a home cooked meal - lasagna. I decided rather than the usual meat version I would try something different. So I ended up making a tray of roast pumpkin and ricotta lasagna with walnut and sage butter sauce. Fortunately this gorgeous couple are very easy to please. And history has proven that if there is enough wine flowing throughout the course of the evening and the ride home is in a yellow taxi - even better.



Roast pumpkin & ricotta lasagna with walnut & sage butter sauce

Recipe source - Adapted from delicious magazine - July 2007

I came across this recipe a couple of years ago and liked the pumpkin, sage, walnut combination but thought it looked a little bland. I decided to add the garlic to the pumpkin at let that roast together and also added gorgonzola and yogurt to the ricotta mix just to give it a little more flavour. If you're not a big fan of soft blue cheese then you can leave that out.
 
Ingredients

2 kg organic Kent pumpkin peeled & cut into pieces

4-6 cloves of garlic

500g ricotta

100gm gorgonzola cheese

2 cups of grana padano

250gm natural yogurt

3 organic eggs

Olive oil

Dried chilli flakes

Freshly grated nutmeg

A bunch of fresh sage leaves

Fresh lasagna sheets

180 g butter

150 g chopped walnuts
 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6

2. Place the chopped pumpkin and whole cloves of garlic in a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with dried chilli flakes and season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and nutmeg. Roast for 30 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender. Allow to cool slightly.

3. Puree pumpkin and garlic in the Magi mix or food processor with half of the chopped sage and then set aside.

4. Clean food processor and then blend the ricotta, yogurt, gorgonzola, grana padano and eggs. Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

5. Lightly oil a lasagna tray and then lay a layer of fresh lasagna sheets over the base and spread with half the pumpkin. Add another layer of lasagne sheets and spread with half the ricotta mix. Repeat process and sprinkle the final layer of ricotta mix with extra grana padano. Cover lasagne with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Then uncover and bake for a further 10 minutes until golden.



Walnut & sage butter sauce

Over a medium heat gently heat the butter, chopped walnuts and fresh sage leaves until the butter starts to foam. Drizzle a little of the walnut and sage butter sauce over individual serves of lasagna. Add extra grana padano if desired and serve immediately.