Last week, I tried something a bit different; I had already tried “courgetti” and I absolutely love lasagne, so I thought I would replace the pasta sheets with slices of courgette instead. Here is my recipe for courgette lasagne.

Ingredients:

Slices of courgette

A batch of white sauce

A batch of bolognaise sauce

Method:

Peel the courgette; with a normal vegetable peeler; into slices of courgette, they will be quite slim so you will need quite a few slices.

Assemble the lasagne after you have made your batches of white sauce and bolognaise sauce. In your baking dish, put a layer of bolognaise sauce, then a layer of courgette slices and then a layer of white sauce. Repeat this until you have used up all the ingredients or the dish is full. Try to keep the layers similar in size.

Place in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes. It won’t need to cook for as long because the layers of courgette are thinner than the pasta sheets.

Serve with garlic bread or more vegetables, I had mine all on its own, as I didn’t feel I needed any more than that.

I know it’s not the most attractive looking plate of food, but trust me, it tasted even better than normal lasagne.

White Sauce

Over the years I’ve made this countless amount of times, so here’s the recipe I use and my tips to go with it.

Ingredients:

25g butter

25g plain flour

600ml milk

25g cheddar cheese

Method:

Melt the butter in a saucepan, over a low heat.

Stir in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. I recommend constantly stirring to avoid it sticking and not burning.

Take the pan of the heat and gradually stir in the milk to get a smooth sauce. Return to the heat and, stirring all the time, bring to the boil. It’s important not to leave it, keep your eye on it at all times to avoid it catching or it will ruin.

Add in the cheese and whisk while it is on the heat, this will allow it to thicken it up quite quickly but leave it on the heat until it does, whisking regularly.

I will be referencing this recipe quite a lot in my next few recipes.

Bolognaise Sauce

This is the first thing that I ever learnt to cook so that I could make lasagne. I must have been 14 at the time; my Aunty bought me a Sam Stern Recipe Book (I still have it!) and I followed the recipe to make lasagne. I’m now a pro and make it without a recipe, how great am I!

Anyway, here’s the recipe that I go by when I make it.

Ingredients:

1 onion

2 carrots

1 garlic clove

450g mince beef

1 beef stock cube

1 tin of tomatoes

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Start by cutting up the onion and carrot and taking off the outside of the garlic clove. This time I blitzed them all up because otherwise my brother won’t eat it. I would normally just dice up the onion and carrot into small pieces and mince the garlic cloves.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Add the onion, carrot and garlic to a pan with some oil and fry it for about 5 minutes to soften them all.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Add the mince beef and brown it by cooking for about 8 minutes while breaking up the mince into smaller pieces.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Add the tin of tomatoes, stock cube and seasoning. Fill up the tin with water and add that as well. Stir it all together and simmer for 15 minutes, keep stirring throughout.

The dogs loved the smell of it too!

This sauce can be used in a lasagne or moussaka or just on pasta with some cheese. All of these recipes are coming in the next week or so! With my own twist of course!