Pumpkin Lasagna

Hello, all.  Kari here.  I am loving the cooler weather and the presence of fall bounty in the grocery store and in farmer's markets, aren't you?  The other day, I picked up a couple of good-looking "pumpkin pie pumpkins" from a farmer's market.  It was admittedly an impulse buy as I had no idea what to do with them!  I often cook from scratch and without following a recipe.  As much as this may make it sound like I'm a proficient gourmet cook, this is not the case.  The reason I usually cook from scratch and without the use of recipes is because I am pretty poor at planning ahead.  In between school and my husband's busy travel schedule for work (I usually travel with him), I don't often keep a careful menu for the week.  So, when I have the time to cook, I use the ingredients I have on hand and I make extra and end up freezing meals for handy availability when there isn't much extra time for cooking.  The other day, I ended up making a pumpkin lasagna that was, in my opinion and the hubby's opinion, a fortuitous stroke of luck!  It ended up being a quite tasty dish, so I'm glad I made extra to freeze.  Some friends have asked for the recipe, so I am going to attempt to recall what I did below.  However, here are three other pumpkin lasagnas from the web that I think look equally tasty (and, if you must follow a strict recipe, you may have better luck with one of these!)

• Easy, Cheesy Pumpkin Lasagna
• Real Simple's Pumpkin Lasagna
• Food & Wine's Pumpkin Lasagne

For my pumpkin lasagna:

I took out a shallow baking pan and put about 1/4 inch water in the bottom.  The oven was preheated to 350 degrees (F).  I sliced one of the pumpkin pie pumpkins in half, cleaned out the seeds and stuff, and placed the halves face down in the baking pan.  I roasted the pumpkin in the oven for about 45 minutes (until tender all the way through).  When the pumpkin came out of the oven, I scooped the pumpkin flesh away from the skin into a separate bowl.

I used two 8x8 inch glass pans to bake my lasagnas in (we had one for dinner---with leftovers!---and the other was wrapped and put in the freezer for another meal down the road).  I sprayed the pans with nonfat nonstick cooking spray and set them aside.

In a saute pan, I sauteed one onion (diced) with a package of mushrooms I needed to use.  I sauteed the onion and mushrooms in a tablespoon or so of olive oil along with two minced garlic cloves. I added some herbs and spices to this while it was cooking:  oregano and some mediterranean herbed sea salt.  Once this was all finished cooking, I added about a 1/2 cup of chicken broth and about 1 1/2 cups of extra lean ground turkey that I had prepared the night before----leftovers!  :)

Meanwhile, I boiled some whole wheat lasagna noodles and set those aside.

I also mixed in some low-fat ricotta cheese to the pumpkin flesh.  I'm thinking it was about a cup of ricotta cheese, but I didn't measure it out---but you could add however much you wanted, I think.

To assemble the lasagna, I put down one layer of noodles, then a layer of the pumpkin mixture, then a layer of the onion/mushroom/turkey mixture.  I repeated this one more time.  I added some low-fat shredded cheese to the top layer and popped it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

As you can see, this was a pretty low-fat healthy version of pumpkin lasagna!  I think this would be amazing with a little cream, smoked cheese, and smoked turkey mixed in----but first of all, I didn't have those ingredients on hand, and secondly, we are trying to be healthy around here.  :)  Even so, my husband loved the end result and he can be pretty critical of low-fat "healthy stuff."  All in all, using pumpkin this way was easy, delicious, and there are a thousand ways to modify what I did to make a really tasty dish for your family.  Enjoy!