Sunday 6 May 2012

Italian Bread Sticks and Lasagna with Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce

One of the May breads for the Mellow Bakers is Rosemary and Fresh Cheese Sticks from Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf or The Art of Handmade Bread. I was waiting for the right menu and occasion to bake them. My youngest son came home from college this past weekend so this was a good opportunity to make a special meal.  We both love bread sticks so that was the first item on the menu and I built the rest of the meal around that.

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I made the bread sticks with almond milk instead of whole milk and used instant yeast instead of fresh yeast. I wasn’t sure how the almond milk would work, but it’s all I had so I decided to go with it. The dough was really sticky due to the soft, all-purpose flour so I added more olive oil.

Here are the photos on how to shape and bake the bread sticks.

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Roll out the dough into a rectangle

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Cut into strips using a pizza wheel.

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Stretch dough into long strips; not too long or they won’t fit on the baking sheet.

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Place the strips on parchment-lined baking sheets.

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1st batch of baked bread sticks.

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2nd batch of bread sticks.

 

I found the perfect companion to this meal in the May/June Issue of Eating Well Magazine.  It’s a lasagna with slow roasted tomato sauce. Bingo!  Did someone say roasted tomatoes? 

Last year, I had an abundance of tomatoes. In fact, at the end of the season, I ran out of things to do with them so I slow-roasted a bunch and froze them in pint-size canning jars. 

As I was planting this year’s tomato plants, I remembered I still had several jars of the slow-roasted tomatoes in the freezer. Since I just finished planting about 40 tomato plants, I decided I better use up some of my surplus from last year. If my harvest this year is anything like it was last year, I’ll have more tomatoes than I can shake a stick at.  Not sure why I would want to do that, but that’s how the saying goes.

 

Lasagna with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

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Here is the recipe I used:
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/lasagna_roasted_tomato_sauce.html

I made the sauce with 3 pints of tomatoes that I had slow-roasted and frozen last year, but you can easily slow roast the tomatoes on the day you plan to make the lasagna; just allow an extra couple of hours.

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I enjoyed building this lasagna with layers of tomato sauce, ricotta cheese and fresh baby spinach leaves.

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And don’t forget the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. 

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Next time I’ll use regular mozzarella cheese. I wasn’t thrilled with the reduced-fat shredded mozzarella cheese that the recipe called for. It doesn’t melt very well; however, it tasted fine. 

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My son and I enjoyed this lasagna. It’s a good recipe to build on. I like the depth of flavor the slow-roasted tomatoes give the sauce. It really bumps the flavor up a notch. However, I think it needs more herbs and my son would like more cheese, but he did say it’s the best vegetable lasagna I’ve made. From a meat eater, that’s saying something.

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The bread sticks tasted good but I think they would be even better with more rosemary and salt. The recipe only called for one sprig of rosemary, but I think it could use more.  I have a huge rosemary plant so no need to skimp there.

If I make this recipe again, I’ll make the strips a little thinner so they’ll bake up more crispy. I baked the bread sticks longer than the recipe indicated because they weren’t browning. The thinner strips turned out crispier than the other ones.  Both had a good flavor, but the crispy ones were definitely better.  I usually like soft bread sticks, but for this version, I prefer the crispy ones.  Go figure!

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The meal turned out good and the bread sticks were a delicious accompaniment to the lasagna. Um, I mean the lasagna was a good accompaniment to the bread sticks. This meal is definitely worth another try with some minor adjustments and a salad.  I forgot that part. :)

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

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