EwE - Better Beef Lasagne - Italian Night

Hey, mambo! Mambo Italiano!
Hey, mambo! Mambo Italiano
Go, go, go you mixed up Siciliano
All you Calabrese do the mambo like a crazy

                                                   From Mambo Italiano

For tap dancing, our first routine is for the Moomba Festival in Melbourne, which takes place annually on the Labour Day long weekend.  I will be away that weekend so I am not participating, but I still get to dance along with my class.  The theme for Moomba this year is food, with two chefs, Guy Grossi and Karen Martini, being crowned Moomba king and queen.

Our tap dance routine is to the dulcet tones of Dean Martin singing Mambo Italiano. I am not a great dancer, but I have a lot of fun at tap dancing, laughing at how clumsy I am sometimes.  Our dance moves include waving around a teatowel and a latex pizza.

When I chose the theme of Italian Night for Eating with Ellie this week, I had no idea I would be back at tap dancing after 15 years away, let alone that we would be dancing to an Italo-American song, but it happens to tie in nicely.

I decided to make Ellie's Better Beef Lasagne, from Comfort Food Fix. This lasagne cuts down on grease and calories by subbing some of the meat for portabello mushrooms, and subbing the white sauce for a mixture of spinach and ricotta.

I didn't have quite enough Napoli sauce, so for the top of my lasagne, I just used more ricotta and spinach.  This made my lasagne perhaps a little dryer than it should have been, but I enjoyed it regardless.  (Aside:  The recipe refers to "marinara" sauce, which in Australia is known as Napoli sauce.)

I couldn't find wholewheat lasagne sheets, so I went for organic ones instead. I also subbed the mozzarella for light cheddar.

This is one of those dishes that gets better with age.  The first night, I was not that enthused about it, but after that, the flavours developed and the lasagne sheets soaked up more moisture from the other ingredients so tasted better. (I did not pre-cook my lasagne sheets, which is not the norm for lasagne sheets here.)

I served my lasagne with steamed carrots and beans - delish!!  And I didn't miss the extra meat or the greasy white sauce.  I like the fact that the lasagne gets in an extra serve of veggies with the spinach.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.