Lasagne with a twist

---

DISCLAIMER: This is a recipe for people who have time to read bullshit. Please approach with spare time.

Who doesn’t love lasagne?

I’ll tell you who, a psychopath doesn’t love lasagne.
(Point to be made here, I love lasagne, hence, I am not a psychopath and neither is my boyfriend.)

We recently moved, which means almost every meal is now a pilot testing for either a new recipe, a new stove, or new cookware. Fascinating isn’t it? I never knew how much I loved rice until I was unable to cook proper, decent rice. See, I was used to cooking on a gas cooker, with the flame and everything. It makes things so much simpler. Well, the new place has a ceramic stove top… Hilarity (for others, tragedy for me) ensues. Thankfully a friend taught me how to make the perfect basmati rice and saved me, but more on that some other time.

SO ANYWAY, every meal is an experiment, especially more so since I rarely look for food recipes, and when I do, I probably won’t stick to them to the letter. Desserts are a different story though… You mess with the bake, you don’t get the cake (feel free to quote me on this, credit to the Creative Cactus).

So I had a bunch of vegetables in the fridge, and I decided to make lasagne.
VEGGIE LASAGNE you say?
I say, what stops you from making both veggie and meat lasagne?

So I began by chopping up my veggies in small-ish cubes. 2 medium-sized onions, diced, 1 medium-sized carrot, 1 medium-sized zucchini, half a yellow bell pepper and anywhere between 6-10 mushrooms (I kinda lost track).

I guess you can tell by now that zero thought was put into balancing this dish. All fridge contents of a vegetative nature (which, incidentally, were about to go bad) went in.

So after chopping the veggies and laying them in neat piles on the chopping board to have a chat amongst themselves, I put some olive oil in a pan, let it warm up and tossed in the onion. At once the rest of the vegetables began to cry and wail, lamenting the loss of their friend, but I, a dark silhouette against the background light, wielding my shiny knife, light reflecting on my thick myopia glasses, remained unmoved. Food was to be had, and I was hungry for…well, food.

After the onion browned, I added the rest of the veggies and let them simmer a bit. I followed up with a LARGE clove of garlic (I love garlic, it smells and tastes great AND it keeps vampires away).

Once all the veggies had browned a bit, I added the pork mince, and worked through it with a wooden spoon to break it up. Once more, crying ensued on account of the breakup. Despite this, the morsels of flesh recovered in no time, as they took to the chunks of veg on the rebound.

I mixed the meat and veggies every few minutes, and when it all looked almost ready I added salt and pepper, oregano and vegetable stock powder. I poured a can of chopped tomatoes on top and brought it to a boil (still mixing, obviously), and then gave my mixture some alcohol to alleviate the burning pain. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any red wine at home (I’m more of a beer type of gal), but I did happen to have some rosé. The pan’s contents had to settle. The subsequent taste-test, conducted by myself, indicated that rosé wine kind of works too, but red reigns superior.

I let everything simmer for about 10 minutes (I think), or until the sauce thickened well – after all, you don’t want soupy lasagne do you? You do need to be careful not to evaporate all the juices either though, you need them to cook the pasta!

Now the fun part begins: THE ASSEMBLY

I began by covering the bottom of a glass baking dish with one thin layer of the meat and veggies, and then – you guessed it! – I topped it with the lasagne, straight from the box.
NOTE: For best results you can cover the bottom of the baking dish with toasted breadcrumbs, but, again, I didn’t have any so I had to settle LIKE SO MANY GOOD PEOPLE OUT THERE DO BECAUSE LIFE JUST ISN’T FAIR.

Ahem. Right. Moving on:

For the next step – you guessed it again – I repeat the process and stacked until the mixture was all in there, making sure I’d left some room for the creamy, heavenly, lovely, marvellous, delicious sauce that is bechamel. I used a square glass container that yields 2-3 servings, which coincidentally proved to be just the right size for the amount I made (lucky me!).

Once the assembly was complete, I made the bechamel. I started by melting 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan, then adding 2 tablespoons of plain flour and mixing well. Then I proceeded to slowly add 1 1/4 cups heated milk, constantly stirring until the mixture thickened, and seasoning with salt and pepper.

Now, keep in mind that at this stage I had not yet procured a whisk, so I set off on this creamy endeavour with no tools or weapons to assist me, fearing fateful failure.
However, I persevered, and opened my cooking utensil drawer in search of an appropriate instrument that looked up for the task. The closest thing I could find was a large wooden fork with 3 prongs.

Practical application tests proved successful, despite the apparent unsuitedness (is this a word?) of the implement, and the bechamel, now completed, was poured over the lasagna. The sauce was then covered by finely grated mild cheddar cheese (for best results use parmesan, but again, this is what I had laying around, and I dealt with it like an adult).

To be honest, the cheesy stretchiness of the cheddar brought the lasagne to another level, but what do I know, I just cook for fun.

Anyway, the whole thing was popped in the oven for about 15 minutes, until the pasta was cooked and the cheese was melted and browned, and then removed and left to cool for about 15′ before serving.

The only problem with this dish was that the. sauce. was. just. not. enough, so when you make this dish, just double everything relating to the bechamel if you like creamy heaven; if, on the other hand, you’re a filthy peasant, cook as is.

Thank you for joining me on another adventure in the kitchen. You were a lovely audience, and I wish you all the best.

NOTE: Quantities may vary for everything except the bechamel.

The Cactus