Right, all! I have had a brilliant and productive day with nothing much scheduled, but much accomplished!
I like to make slighly fiddly things to eat at the weekend; those things you maybe wouldn't usually bother with during the working week. Today's late lunch/early dinner was vegetarian lasagne, and you lucky things are about to learn the secrets of it! The basic recipe is one used by my Mum, but I put plenty of my own little twists into it!
Ingredients for a lasagne to fill a 30cm lasagne dish (probably serves about six people):
For the base sauce:
Olive oil (a drizzle for frying)
120ml of red dried lentils (sorry this is such a strange unit!)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 (750g) large jar of passata
2 teaspoons of green pesto
Italian herbs
Various vegetables...I used:
1 courgette, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
10 chestnut mushrooms, quartered
For the layering:
Dried lasagne verdi sheets
Rocket/spinach leaves
Béchamel sauce (I won't go into making it, but you can find a recipe here)
Grated cheese of your choice (I used extra mature cheddar)
The beauty of this meal is that it can easily adapt to what you have in the cupboard as well as your likes and dislikes. You can substitute all of the vegetables for others if you like, or if you have only mushrooms and three colours of pepper, that will work too!
To start fry up your lentils, onion and garlic in the olive oil.
Serve with salad leaves:
I like to make slighly fiddly things to eat at the weekend; those things you maybe wouldn't usually bother with during the working week. Today's late lunch/early dinner was vegetarian lasagne, and you lucky things are about to learn the secrets of it! The basic recipe is one used by my Mum, but I put plenty of my own little twists into it!
Ingredients for a lasagne to fill a 30cm lasagne dish (probably serves about six people):
For the base sauce:
Olive oil (a drizzle for frying)
120ml of red dried lentils (sorry this is such a strange unit!)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 (750g) large jar of passata
2 teaspoons of green pesto
Italian herbs
Various vegetables...I used:
1 courgette, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
10 chestnut mushrooms, quartered
For the layering:
Dried lasagne verdi sheets
Rocket/spinach leaves
Béchamel sauce (I won't go into making it, but you can find a recipe here)
Grated cheese of your choice (I used extra mature cheddar)
The beauty of this meal is that it can easily adapt to what you have in the cupboard as well as your likes and dislikes. You can substitute all of the vegetables for others if you like, or if you have only mushrooms and three colours of pepper, that will work too!
To start fry up your lentils, onion and garlic in the olive oil.
Once your lentils have taken a paler yellow colour, you add your passata, around 400ml of water and your chopped vegetables.
Add the pesto, herbs and seasoning to taste, then cover and allow to simmer whilst you make your béchamel.
After half an hour of simmering, your base sauce should now look ready to go into your lasagne dish. If you think it looks too wet, remove the lid and allowit to simmer on the stove until it has reduced a bit.
At this point, pre-heat your oven to about 180°C.
Now for the assembly: I do a layer of base sauce followed by a layer of leaves (spinach, or rocket for extra pepperiness), then a layer of lasagne sheets, then repeat the whole thing again, top with the béchamel sauce and sprinkle grated cheese on top.
After forty-five minutes in the oven:
If you try any of my recipes, I'd love to see your photos and hear of any modifications that you make.
Happy cooking!
No comments:
Post a Comment