Zucchini and Pesto Lasagna #

Related: Pesto Genovese

I know that zucchini season and turn-your-oven-on-long-enough-to- make-lasagna season rarely overlap, so I carried this vision of what I'd consider the perfect midsummer green lasagna for what felt like years, until we were home on an unusually cold and rainy Saturday in July that should have made us grumpy, but did not because it ended in this. It was worth the wait. I like vegetable lasagnas in which the vegetables are central, and here a great mountain of thinly sliced zucchini is cooked in olive oil and garlic until it almost collapses into the pan; this, to me, is when zucchini becomes the most flavorful. I prefer dried noodles over the no-boil kind, but I still don't boil them, just soak them in hot tap water for 10 to 15 minutes before assembling the lasagna. They come out of the oven perfect, and never soggy. Finally, I like very tall lasagnas; we will use the whole pound of noodles. We'll bake this on a tray, just in case our hubris trips us up and it bubbles over. When it's done, it's sky-high, the top layer crackly with bronzed melted cheese, and you might even find yourself looking forward to the next rainy summer day.

Ingredients #

Instructions #

1. Prepare the zucchini: Heat a large skillet or sauté pan over medium heat.
2. Once the pan is hot, add ¼ cup oil. When the oil is hot, add the sliced garlic, and cook, stirring, until it's just golden at the edges, about 1 min-ute. Add the zucchini, 1½ teaspoons kosher salt, and red-pepper flakes to taste, and increase the heat to medium-high. Cook, turning over occa-sionally, until the zucchini becomes soft and starts to break down, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, and cook 15 to 20 minutes more, at which point the zucchini will be jammy and very tender and soft. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt or heat if needed. Let it cool slightly while you soak the noodles and make the sauce.
3. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
4. Prepare the noodles: Place the lasagna noodles in a large, wide bowl or deep 9-by-13-inch baking dish, and cover with the hottest tap water you can get. Soak for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the noodles are pliable, while you prepare the sauce. -›
5. Make the sauce: Melt the butter in a large saucepan (for the wiped out pot that you used for the zucchini filling, if it can hold 2 quarts) over nedium-high heat. Once it's melted, add the flour all at once, and whisk it until smooth. Add the milk, a small glug at a time, whisking constantly so that no lumps form. When the flour mixture has reached a batterlike consistency, you can begin adding the milk in larger pours, whisking the whole time. Once you've added all the milk, then add the minced garlic, 11 teaspoons salt, and many grinds of black pepper, and bring the sauce to a boil, stirring frequently. The sauce will immediately begin to thicken once it boils. Reduce the heat to medium, and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.
6. Stir in the ricotta, and remove from the heat.
7. Assemble the lasagna: Spread ½ cup of ricotta sauce in the bottom of a deep 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Shake the water off the noodles, and arrange your first layer of noodles, slightly overlapping their edges. Spread 1 cup of sauce over the noodles. Scatter a quarter of the zucchini on top of the sauce, followed by 1½ tablespoons pesto, and ¼ cup Parmesan.
8. Repeat three times, then arrange the final noodles on top. Coat the noodles with the last 1 cup of ricotta sauce and remaining ¼ cup Parmesan.
9. Bake the lasagna: Cover tightly with foil, and bake on a tray (just in case it drips) for 30 minutes, or until the pasta is tender a knife should easily pierce the noodles. Remove the foil carefully, and bake for another 20 min-utes, until the lasagna is golden on top and bubbling like crazy. Keep it in the oven for another 5 minutes if the color on top isn't as dark as you wish.
10. Wait, then serve: The best lasagna has time to settle before you eat it. When it comes out of the oven, it might seem a bit wet, but 15 minutes later, it will be glorious the excess wetness absorbed into the noodles and filling, ready for a relatively clean slice. Cut into generous squares, and dig in.

do ahead: Leftovers should stay in the pan. I like to reheat lasagna in a 350°F (175°C) oven with the foil off, because I prefer it when the top gets very dark. To freeze for future use, allow it to cool completely and wrap it two or three times in plastic wrap before freezing.