(While typing this up, I had a thought: Maybe I should post the finished product first, so you can see the beautiful food. I think that’s what most people do. Thought?)
I had a day off today, so I decided to cook something that took a little more time and effort. I looked up a bunch of recipes and decided to make zucchini lasagna roll ups. You can find the site I got the recipe from HERE.
I was kind of excited, because I’ve used a mandolin slicer to cut zucchini, but this would be my first time using my ribbon slicer. I tried them both so you don’t have to!
The mandolin slicer made nice, even slices, and I had quite a few when I was done. Just a tip: Please, for the love of all that’s good in this world, PLEASE use the finger guard! Several years ago, I didn’t… and there was blood.
Beautiful zucchini slices!
The ribbon cutter took some getting used to… but when I did, I loved it!
Look at these beautiful ribbons of zucchini! I ended up doing two of the zucchini with this, and one with the mandolin slicer.
After letting them sit out for an hour or two, I put them in the oven to help dry the ribbons and slices. Zucchini is notoriously watery, and I didn’t want a bunch of water in my lasagna.
The recipe called for sausage only, but I chose to get half hot Italian sausage and half extra lean beef. I broke up the sausage first and started cooking it. Then I added the beef and even some chopped onion.
When the meat and onion was done, I let it cool a little and then added it to the ricotta, egg, freshly grated parmesan, and fresh basil. I put in probably twice the amount of basil… because it’s good. I may have put in more parmesan than called for as well. And ricotta.
I used the same skilled that I cooked the meat in and put Rao’s vodka sauce in the bottom. I love Rao’s! They don’t add sugar to their sauce, and it’s soooo good!
Starting with the slices, I put a bit of the meat/cheese mixture on and then added mozzarella…. and rolled it up! It was easy, but messy. I don’t mind messy.
My first one in the sauce, I kept rolling more. Then I got to the ribbons.
It took a minute to figure out how long I should cut the ribbon, but it was easy after that.
It didn’t take long before I would cut them into the right-ish sizes and have a few stacked up to roll.
I filled the skillet! It’s like a meaty, cheesy bouquet!
I added more mozzarella on the top, and then put the last of the vodka sauce on top to finish it.
Wow. This is heaven.
Here it is, plated. Or bowled? Anyway, I did put a little more sauce on it, but I wanted you to be able to see the individual rolls. I cooked it for 25 minutes or so, and the zucchini was still kind of chewy/crunchy. I’ll have plenty of leftovers, and I’m sure as I heat them up, the zucchini will cook more thoroughly.
Overall, I loved it. My husband liked it too and had seconds. To be fair, he took a small portion to start with, but went for seconds after it was deemed good. Ha! I would definitely make this again!
The Happy Viking 