Ann Popovich of Jeannette, Pa., requested a recipe for vegetable lasagna "with a cream sauce and no tomatoes."

Bryon Predika of Baltimore responded with tester Laura Reiley's choice.

Vegetable Lasagna

Serves 18

6 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 large)

1 stick butter

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour

1 1/2 quarts milk

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

3 pounds ricotta cheese

2 eggs

2 to 3 large cloves garlic

1/3 cup chopped parsley

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon basil

1/8 teaspoon thyme

2/3 cup grated Romano cheese

1 pound lasagna noodles

1/2 pound asparagus tips, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/3 pound snow peas

1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

1 pound grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 pound grated Swiss cheese

1 ounce pine nuts

In a large skillet with a lid, saute the onions in butter until limp. Cover, reduce heat to very low and cook 30 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the flour, stirring to mix well.

Reduce heat to medium and add 1 cup of milk, a little at a time, stirring so as to make no lumps. Add remaining milk, the nutmeg, white pepper and mustard. Bring slowly to a simmer.

Simmer until white sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Shut off heat. Stir in Worcestershire sauce.

In a bowl, mix together ricotta cheese, eggs, garlic, parsley, oregano, basil, thyme and Romano cheese. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large lasagna pan, arrange a series of layers from the bottom: white sauce, uncooked lasagna noodles, ricotta mixture, an arrangement of asparagus tips, snow peas and mushrooms, and a layer of grated cheddar and Swiss.

Spoon white sauce over the top. Repeat layers to the top of the pan, ending with the noodles, topped with white sauce and covered with a final layer of grated cheese. Cover tightly with foil.

Bake for 1 hour, or until noodles are tender. Remove the cover. Sprinkle on the pine nuts and brown under the broiler. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes to firm up before cutting.

Tester Laura Reiley's comments: "This is the 900-pound gorilla of lasagnas. It weighs a ton and takes a long time to assemble, but yields a delicious crowd pleaser that also makes good leftovers.

"The liquid from the raw vegetables is absorbed by the noodles as they cook, and the herb-intensive ricotta contrasts nicely with the creamy cheeses and white sauce.

"I might delete the snow peas (they get overly soft and mushy) and add more mushrooms, and I would suggest using white cheddar just so the overall effect is a pale, cream-colored lasagna (orange cheddar adds little blobs of orange to the whole thing) with appealing bits of green."

Recipe requests

Joe Zaccardo of Amsterdam, N.Y., writes: "Do you know a recipe for chicken pepperoni? This was a main dish in a movie with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase."

Linda Donervan of Middletown wants a recipe for chicken-noodle soup "like the Silver Restaurant in Silver Spring served. It had a thick broth but wasn't a cream-based soup," she says.

If you are looking for a recipe or can answer a request for a hard-to-find recipe, write to Ellen Hawks, Recipe Finder, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278.

If you send more than one recipe, please put each on a separate sheet of paper with your name, address and daytime phone number. Please list the ingredients in order of use, and note the number of servings each recipe makes. Please type or print contributions.