Tonight I cheated on her with Giada de Laurentis. Counting the Swiss chard spaghetti, that is the second time in a month (and the second post in a row) that I've cheated on my beloved Ina. This time, it was veggie "meatloaf" with checca sauce.
The ingredient list for this one was pretty huge, and chopping everything up was pretty time-consuming. I can imagine that it would be a lot easier if you had a food processor, as does Ms. de Laurentis. However, it's very doable, since you're chopping everything up while the rice and lentils simmer, which takes a while.
It's full of such goodies: lentils, brown rice, onion, carrots, celery, egg, tomatoes, scallions, garlic, olive oil, basil, baby spinach - and mozzarella! What's not to like? The pile of ingredients smelled so fragrant when it all came together.
Then you stuff it in a loaf pan (mine barely fit) and put more mozzarella and parmesan on top. (Theoretically you're also supposed to use some tomato slices, but there was enough tomato in here already for my liking.)
And after baking:
Mmm. I think mine was a little liquidy because I didn't squeeze all the juices out of my wilted spinach leaves.
I also know that I made another mistake - I was too excited (and too hungry) after all that preparation that I didn't let it sit for the full 15 minutes. Guess what happened:
It was still very good, just not very loaf-like. And again, the checca sauce on top would have been more sauce-like if I had a food processor, but I don't, so we get chunky tomatoes.
All in all a really tasty recipe - I'm looking forward to having leftovers tomorrow. But it was very time-consuming and will probably have to be relegated to a weekend meal, at least when I start working again. (Sighhh...)
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