I love this recipe of such confort food (though I would only skip the cumin...for I don't like its combination with meat but rather with fish)
And, I too, have the habit of digging into your rich and yummy blog by opening all the links you put here and there so my reading (and pleasure) increase exponentially with each C&Z page!!
Thanks Clotilde!

wow! that looks really scrumptious. i think i'll have to give it a try. i like the combination of meat and vegetables.

a question about the cumin... you said to use whole cumin seeds. will they break down during the cooking process or remain whole?

I recently dug into your archives, and made the Hazelnut & Pepper Biscuits for a "Bake Off" at work. I won a prize for most unusual ingredient! (And they were scoffed very quickly)

Your blog is super. So are your photographies. They make me hungry. I have spent a nice moment when seeing them. Thanks a lot.

Ricotta and pesto instead of bechamel? That sounds lovely to me... I think I would go for rucola instead of the not-sold-here Picard vegetables.
I have a wonderful pesto lasagna recipe from an Italian friend of mine, with vegetables too; it is a perfect twist to the traditional ones!

I can hardly wait to try this. I am a half and half. I use recipes straight through once, then jazz them up as I go along! I have a staggering collection, too!

This looks really good! But is the comment to only use jarred or carton tomatoes necessary? I don't think I've ever seen either for sale where I live. But if I did, I'm sure they'd be very expensive. The dish is almost too expensive to make (all that cheese, meat, and wine), so buying special tomatoes would put it over the top. All I'm asking is... quit making me feel inadequate!

Just kidding. I would feel inadequate no matter what you did. ;-)

Can't wait to try it (cheap tomatoes or not ;)

Just curious: why do you suggest avoiding canned tomatoes (versus jarred or paste in cartons)??

You've inspired me to be more adventurous. I have files and more files filled with recipes that I've collected over the past 30 years; clippings and pages torn from magazines and newspapers. I pass over most of them thinking, I can't make them now because I'm looking for an old favorite. I need to go back to them and say, now is the time! Oh... the lasagna sounds absolutely wonderful. I will not put this recipe aside for later.

I can so relate to your post. It happens to me often, collected hand written recipes neatly filed and forgotten.:)

Fresh lasagna or dried? Can one get Fresh lasagna sheets in Paris?

To an Italian like myself this lasagna is a bit odd, but I have only two objections.
The first one is that you put in too many flavorings: tomato, cumin, mixed herbs, pesto and so on, but I understand that this is very personal, as my style is one or at most two commanding flavors at a time.
But the real question is: why on earth do you add an egg (of all things) to the pesto ricotta mix?
And just a little aside: we start at the bottom with pasta, not with meat, so that the filling is all encased, but I understand this does not have to be a must for anybody.

I have a habit of buying too many tomatoes, and roasting the leftovers at the end of the week. And then freezing them, if I have no immediate use planned for them. These are excellent in any pasta sauce.

This looks delicious and I appreciate the detailed instructions - very helpful for a newbie like me!

I do the same thing. It is rare that I actually cook from a recipe but I have literally hundreds of books, dozens of notebooks, recipe boxes and stacks of torn out recipes. Why oh why?

This has to be the single most unusual lasagne recipe that I have ever come across! It sounds absolutely stunning and I'm doing it tomorrow. Thanks so much, once again, for something new!

Nice yellow casserole! : )

This does sound like the perfect gloomy weather food. Think I'll try it out this weekend along with a glass of red wine by the fire.

Great for feeding friends, because EVERYbody loves lasagna! Except for vegetarian... and they love vegetarian lasagne...

Speaking of working through the archives, one day a couple of weeks ago I (in East Lansing, Michigan) and my sister (in Palo Alto) were making C&Z recipes at the same time! I thought that was a pretty funny coincidence. I made the orange cake and she made the carrot and rosemary scones. Both were said to be delicious at the parties that we made them for!

Mmmm I love the idea of putting Chili powder and pesto in my lasagna. I'd probably use some different cheeses because I'm not a huge ricotta fan!

The cumin sounds like an interesting addition...I'll have to try this sometime. Yes - I agree, Lasagna is the perfect cold weekend comfort food.

My Grandmother makes that best lasagna. Funny thing is, there is hardly any cheese in it. She uses spinach and meet for the filling and then just a little parmeasan cheese to bind it. Grandma makes her own sauce of course and it is absoluley fantastic! It is filling and light as well.

Good advice, this pulling out of old recipes. :) I had a train conversation yesterday about pot-au-feu recycled five times in a row--I wonder if this is a technique that has finally been codified? Then again, my mother (and many others, I imagine) perfected leftovers years ago . . .

This looks lovely -- this is the third unusual lasagna recipe i stumble on this week -- the first was a lasagna stuffed with meat sauce but also cooked ham and hard boiled eggs, and the second was a buffalo chicken lasagna with blue cheese. And yes, all three are now in my recipe file :)

You are so right. I am always trying to prepare new and exciting recipes. It is time to go through my files and pick out all of our family favorites and get cooking!

Thanks for the lasagna recipe.

We made it!! It was a bit fiddly with the ricotta directly on top of the meat but I love the ricotta! It worked beautifully and was a tremendously satisfying dish. It has been christened C&Z lasagna in our home.

Wow, I agree with morgaine that there's an aweful lot going on in that dish (which if it's your thing, great).

As for the egg-ricotta mixture, that's done in some Italian-American communities. I don't know if it comes from some regional variation, but it sounds likely.

I've seen fresh lasagne in Paris, but any large sheets of pasta can be used just fine. Personally, I tend to make my own, since it's no harder than trekking over to a pasta shop. I reserve that for more complicated pastas.