Flatbread Lasagna

I love magazines. Not all mag's mind you, anything related to cooking and food - love. Any design, home improvement, get-fit mag, natural living mag - love, love, love. It's such a treat when I fly somewhere and to pick out a couple for the trip. Although I've found that it's better to get the cooking ones on the way home, that way I don't have to lug them around for the whole trip. It only took a couple years to figure that out!

Last month coming home from somewhere I grabbed the April issue of Food & Wine. I used to be a subscriber and still love it. I'm not usually one of those read the end of the story first kind of people, but I always turn to the last page for the "last bite" section which features some yummy pastry, or dessert. I can never resist trying those recipes.

Anyways, over the weekend I was scrolling through the recipes I marked to try and this one caught my eye. I don't have a good standby lasagna recipe and using flatbread instead of noodles definitely sounded different.

Overall I was happy with how it turned out. The whole wheat bread made it seemingly healthier and the soaked up all the sauce and cheese nicely, making a good base. The second night we re-heated it in the oven and got that nice crispness that makes everything a bit chewier. This is definitely a dish where the first night is good, but the second is better.

Flatbread Lasagna
from Food & Wine

1 pound hot Italian sausages, casings removed
1 and 1/2 cups ricotta
salt and ground pepper
3 cups jarred tomato sauce (I used my homemade tomato sauce, but any marinara would work)
4 whole wheat pita (or naan)**
2 cups shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a skillet cook the sausages over medium heat and break up the sausages until thoroughly cooked and browned. In a small bowl season the ricotta with salt and pepper and mix it well. Spread 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce in a large pie plate (if you have a deep-dish pie plate use that).  Top with one flatbread, half of the sausage, and 3/4 cup each of the ricotta and mozzarella (see side note below). Start again with the sauce and layer everything again.

Side note: If your using a deep dish pie plate you will probably be able to layer everything twice more in which case you should use 1/3 of the sausage to start and 1/2 cups of the cheese.  I used just a normal plate and found that only two layers fit.   

After the last layer top with another 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce and the last flatbread.  Top with the remaining 1 cup of sauce and 1/2 cup of mozzarella.  Create a foil tent and place your pie plate on the top shelf in the center of the oven.  I recommend putting a sheet pan underneath the plate to catch any drippings.  Bake for 30 minutes with the foil on, then uncover and bake for 30 minutes longer.  Let it cool for 15-20 minutes and serve. 

**The original recipe called for pocketless pita or naan, to make this a little healthier I used whole wheat pita.  With all the sausage and cheese not sure if I can really call this a healthy dish though...whole wheat or not.

Stats: Serve 6, with leftovers
Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes, but only 20 minutes active time
Seasonal ingredients: No seasonal ingredients for this one, although I did use the tomato sauce I jarred a couple weeks ago.

happy cooking this week.
alison