Another Mediterranean Meal with Friends: Featuring Potato Lasagna

This past Sunday, we pulled together a Mediterranean meal to be enjoyed with these guys. And their parents and grandparents too! Their grandma, Jill, is an outstanding cook and has invited us for many lovely meals and introduced us to many tasty and traditional English dishes. One day, I hope to be as an extraordinary a cook as she is. The baking? I'm not even going to try. I'm already thinking about her Christmas Eve event of the season.

For appetizers we had crusty bread from The Hungry Ghost Bakery, Hummus with Vegetables, Marinated Eggplant with Mint & Capers, and Red & Yellow peppers with Capers. We also tried a new dish, Tomato, Feta and Red Pepper Cazuela.

The eggplant, patiently waiting to be cooked in oil and smothered in mint, garlic, salt & pepper... And of course, more olive oil!

And, voila, the final product, which we marinated overnight. I believe I can now say I have prepared this dozens of times for gatherings of friends and families. And, it is so well-loved, that our friend Elisabeth recently made this for her daughter Rebecca's wedding.

 The Marinated Eggplant is based on a recipe from the Silver Spoon Italian cookbook. I hugely recommend the Silver Spoon cookbook. It is a staple in our household and every recipe we have tried has been dependable and delicious!

We made a couple of Bill Bradley's recipes. Bill has created many fantastic Mediterranean recipes, which are now are on a constant rotation. We made a couple of fast & easy tapas on the stovetop-Olives & Rosemary as well as Red & Yellow Peppers with Capers. The Red and Yellow Peppers pops with color and was excellent as an appetizer and with our meal. Copious garlic included!

Alas, with all of the excitement, I was only able to get a kitchen prep shot of La Cazuela. It is particularly beautiful after the feta is baked and was delicious slathered on the crusty french batard. I'll be sure to get a picture in the future as we are sure to prepare this appetizer again. Enjoy this recipe from Splendid Table. I would love to hear what you think!

We also had a store bought hummus with vegetables, which we beautified with Spanish paprika, dukkah, parsley, pan-fried chick peas and olive oil. Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mix and there are many versions. You can use store bought and there are also many versions on-line. We used store bought dukkah that was a mix of almonds, sesame seeds, coriander, anise seeds and kosher salt. Dukkah is also excellent served with bread and olive oil.

The hummus was served with colorful carrots from a local farm and English cucumbers.

For the meal, we had a main dish entree of potato lasagna. Potato lasagna is prepared like Italian lasagna, with the substitution of par-broiled potato slices in the place of lasagna noodles. Our lasagna dish included a ricotta mix with parsley, spinach and lemon zest. We also adjusted the recipe to include sliced mushrooms. We used a delicately spiced fennel sauce that Donna created using local tomatoes from our farm share at Mountain View Farm CSA in Easthampton.

My niece Dani assisted with potato lasagna assembly.

Potato Lasagna, ready to go in the oven!

I learned of this dish when we were looking at Swedish cookbook for our friend Sarah's Swedish themed Christmas dinner. The word we heard is that this dish was developed as pasta was foreign to the Swedes.

The potato lasagna was served with an addicting stove top prepared Romanesco broccoli dish using this recipe from Saveur.

And, of course, we had a platter of green salad with our meal.

Needless to say, all tummies were full. Good times were had by all. The kiddos mostly focused on appetizers and yummy giant Twinkie cupcakes from Smithsonian Chowder House in Hatfield.