Italian Cuisine – Italian Garden Lasagne

Ingredients:

about 3 tablespoons olive oil  1 1/2 large onions chopped  700g button mushrooms sliced  3 fat cloves garlic crushed  40g plain flour  3 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes  1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil  salt and freshly ground black pepper  1 1/2 teaspoons caster sugar  700g frozen wholeleaf spinach thawed and drained  about 225g pre cooked lasagne Sauce: 1.3 litres milk  1 bay leaf  a few black peppercorns  175g butter  115g plain flour  2 teaspoons dijon mustard To finish: 350g mature cheddar grated

Method:

First infuse the milk for the sauce. Measure the milk into a pan add the bay leaf and peppercorns and bring slowly up to just below boiling point on the simmering plate. Cover and allow to infuse in the simmering oven for about 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick frying pan on the boiling plate fry the onion then add the mushrooms and garlic. Allow to cook for a few minutes then sprinkle with the flour and blend in. Mix in the tomatoes basil salt pepper and sugar and bring to the boil stirring for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat. 

Now make the béchamel sauce.  Melt the butter in a pan on the simmering plate add the flour and stir in then gradually blend in the strained infused hot milk.  Bring to the boil stirring all the time until thickened. Season with salt pepper and mustard.

Spread one third of the tomato and mushroom mixture across the base of a shallow ovenproof dish about 380 x 300mm. Make sure that the spinach is really well drained through a colander or sieve. Season with salt and pepper. Use about a third of the spinach dotted in small rounds over the top. Cover with a third of the sauce and a little grated cheese. 

Lay half the sheets of pasta across the dish and continue to layer up as before starting with the tomato mixture then the rest of the pasta and layer again finishing with the sauce and cheese.

Cook in the roasting oven on the grid shelf on the floor for about 35 to 40 minutes until the pasta is cooked and golden brown on top. If browning too much slide in the cold shelf on the second set of runners.

Serve with a green salad and French bread or Garlic bread if they are a hungry crowd. It is important to season this vegetarian lasagne with its abundance of mushrooms and tomato very well. The lasagne pasta available now is mostly the dry precooked variety that you don’t have to cook to soften firstServes: 10