Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Vegetarian Lasagne

It's mid term break and Rory and I decided to stay in Bogotá for a nice chilled week; sleeping in, brunch in the sunshine (remarkably there actually is sunshine in "The Bog" right now) and just general laziness. The problem of course is, I'm not very good at doing nothing, so Bucket List it is... I decided to fly solo on this recipe, I read a few other recipes but essentially created my own, this could mean 1 of 2 things - Disaster or Passable. I'm hoping for passable... Tonight's dinner proudly brought to you by vegetarian lasagne.
Ingredients at the ready

The beginnings of the sauce

Sauce almost ready

Preparing the cheeses

Grating the vegetables

Starting the construction phase

A sprinkling of cheese on the pasta sheets

Layer upon layer upon layer

First layer complete!

Time to layer the next lot of pasta

Oppps, forgot the potato! Oh well put it on top and cover in cheese!

Fresh from the oven

Dinner is served

Alternatively with garlic bread...

Vegetarian Lasagne

Makes: 8-10 servings

Prep Time: 30mins Bake Time: 1hour

For the Sauce:
Oil
1 onion (diced)
3 garlic cloves (minced)
1/2 cup mushroom (diced)
1 capsicum (diced)
800g tinned tomatoes
pinch of chilli flakes
pinch of mixed herbs
splash of balsamic vinegar
Chopped Parsley
(You can tell this is my recipe due to the lack of exact measures!)

1. In a large pot, sauté the onion and garlic in enough oil to cover the base of the pot. When the onion goes transparent add in the mushroom and capsicum. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring the vegetables often.

2. Add in the balsamic, herbs and tomatoes (I mashed these up before putting them in so I didn't have big chunks of tomato, but whatever you prefer is good) 

3. Leave pot covered on the stove on a low heat while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

For the Filling:
250g ricotta
2 eggs
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
cracked pepper (to taste)
1 carrot
1 zucchini
1 bunch asparagus 
2 aubergines 
6 small potatoes
100g baby spinach 
10 mushrooms

18 lasagne sheets
200g mozzarella

1. Mix the ricotta, eggs and parmesan together to form a paste and set aside.

2. Prepare the remaining vegetables (I simply used my peeler to get thin slices of carrot, zucchini and asparagus and then sliced the potato, mushrooms, spinach and aubergines with a knife but it's up to you based on how chunky and "meaty" you want the ingredients to be)

3. Boil a pot to cook the lasagne sheets and set them aside on some wax paper when cooked.

For the Lasagne:
1. Place a thin layer of sauce onto the bottom of your lasagne dish and top with enough sheets of pasta to cover the base.

2. On top of the pasta, spread (or in my case crumble) the ricotta/parmesan mix and then layer the remaining vegetables as you wish, adding a nice layer of sauce as you go. Top with more pasta sheets and repeat.

3. On top of the final layer of pasta sprinkle mozzarella.*

4. Place into a moderate oven and bake for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

* I have to admit that somehow during the assembly of my lasagne I missed my large bowl of potato that I had set to one side, so ours had a nice potato and cheese topping rather than the potato being layered into the dish. I'm claiming it's creative licence, Rory is just laughing at me...


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