White Lasagna with Mushrooms

Several years ago (over a decade) my boyfriend (now husband) came home for a visit to his mother's raving about a white mushroom lasagna that his mother had gotten from Balducci's.  Based on his often repeated description of the dish, I attempted to make a White Lasagna with Mushrooms recently. 

It is not often that I use two pictures in one post, but this turned out so beautifully that I have to include a long shot and a close up.  I made this recipe as I would my regular Mushroom Lasagna but I made a vegetable broth based cream sauce to replace the red sauce and I did not mix the mushrooms in with the ricotta cheese mixture.  I used garlic powder to add some flavor sauce instead of minced garlic because I did not want the sauce to be lumpy at all. I have no idea if I even got close to the original dish that my husband has raved about all these years, but it was delicious anyway. 

9 lasagna noodles, cooked la dente
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 3/4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
15 ounces ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 sea salt
olive oil
2 pounds slice brown and white mushrooms
salt to taste
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Cook the lasagna noodles as per package instructions, but do not over cook the noodles. 
2. In a saucepan, melt the unsalted butter, sprinkle the flour and garlic powder over the top of the butter and mix with a whisk until a paste or roux is formed.  To the roux, slowly add in the vegetable broth a little at a time while stirring with a whisk to ensure that no lumps are formed.  Add the cream a little at a time, again stirring with a whisk to avoid lumps. Set the sauce aside. 
3. In a medium sized bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, eggs, 1 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, oregano, basil and salt. 
4. In a large skillet warm 1/2 tablespoon olive oil and saute the mushrooms in batches until they are browned and have released all water.  As to do each batch you made need to add another 1/2 tablespoon of oil to the pan.  Salt the mushrooms to taste.
5. Place a layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 in baking dish.  Top this with 3 noodles, 1/3 of the ricotta cheese, 1/3 of the sauteed mushrooms.  Repeat the layers ending with a layer of sauce.  Top with the remaining shredded mozzarella cheese and the Parmesan cheese