Eggplant Pumpkin Lasagna

I was looking for  recipes to use up some of my eggplants and found this vegetarian lasagna on allrecipes.com. It is a little high maintenance, but worth the extra time and effort.  I think you can take a couple short cuts and it would taste just as good. For example I cooked the eggplants on the stove top grill, not the Weber. I did get out my pasta maker again for this recipe, but I think it would be fine with store bought lasagna noodles.

Jenny’s pumpkin bread was great for dessert!!

Eggplant Pumpkin Lasagna
(adapted from allreipes.com Vegetarian Four Cheese Lasagna)

Ingredients

• 1 small sugar pumpkin cut in half with the seeds scooped out
• 1 eggplant sliced in 1/2 inch rounds
• 10 plum tomatoes
• 1 pint ricotta cheese
• 9 ounces crumbles feta cheese
• 2/3 cups pesto
• 2 eggs, beaten
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 cups tomato sauce
• fresh pasta sheets (2 eggs, 2 cups flour made the right amount of pasta sheets)
• 1 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place pumpkin halves cut side down on a greased cookie sheet. Roast until you can stick a fork in it easily about 40 minutes. Let them cool. With a large spoon scoop out the pumpkin. You will need 2 cups of pumpkin. Use the rest in Jenny’s pumpkin bread recipe.
3. Grill the eggplants on a charcoal grill or fry on a skillet turning once, until charred and tender, 10 – 15 minutes.
4. Halve tomatoes and place on baking sheet in oven for the last 20 minutes of pumpkin time; cook until tender and wrinkly.
5. In a bowl stir togehter ricotta, feta, pesto, eggs, salt and pepper until well mixed. Fold in pumpkin.
6. Layer the lasagna in a 9 x 13 baking dish:

• 1/2 of the tomato sauce
• pasta sheets / noodles
• single layer of eggplants
• 1/2 of the ricotta mixture
• pasta sheets / noodles
• single layer of roasted tomatoes
• 1/2 of the ricotta mixture
• 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese
• pasta sheets / noodles
• 1/2 of the tomato sauce
• top with 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese

7. Bake in preheated oven for 30 – 40 minutes, until golden and bubbly.