In the Kitchen - Vegetarian Lasagna
In the heady days of Steemit I used to do an 'In the Kitchen' blog featuring my recipes prepared by ..... me !! What a surprise. Now this is not the same but rather a watered down version of the same. So, the two persons who follow my blog know that I have recently relocated to Italy from that mighty continent Africa. As far as food preparation and cuisine goes ... a whole new learning curve.
A picture from the Steemit archive .... but yes, Ffloyd is still my cooking inspiration... or should that be fermented grapes
Every February my better half goes vegetarian for the month... and in the spirit of that I decided to make a vegetarian lasagna for dinner last night.
I made the entire meal from scratch with the exception of the Mexican fried beans which we had in the pantry, courtesy of a recent Mexican food promo the local supermarket had.
First up, a basic egg pasta using two eggs, 200 grams of Tipo "00" flour and I add around a tablespoon of good quality olive oil (this is optional but does give a silkier finish)
From top clockwise ... I prepared some yellow lentils in a home made chicken stock and added same to the Mexican refried beans... adding a decent amount of paprika, cumin and ground coriander.
Bottom right is the second layer which is onion, garlic and fresh thyme sauteed along with sliced button mushrooms. I then added a small amount of the chicken stock and the shredded spinach, covered and simmered until the spinach had reduced in size. Seasoned well with black ground pepper and salt.
The tomato sauce I made with over ripe fresh cherry tomatoes. I wish I knew which cultivar they were but they were absolutely stunning in taste. Some tomato paste and water to get the wetness started , sauteed garlic, onion and one red chilli went into the mix as well as dried origanum, thyme and parsley. AWESOMENESS !!
I forgot to take pics of the bechamel sauce ... my bad ... standard bechamel with some added ground nutmeg. Layer the ingredients starting with a sheet of pasta, thin layer of tomato mix and a decent layer of the spinach mix. Another sheet of pasta then the lentil / bean mix with a generous layer of tomato mix as well as bechamel sauce. Another sheet of pasta and then bechamel sauce and mozzarella cheese and into the oven
Baked for 30 minutes at 180 degrees celcius .... for the record when using the oven we always do double, one for freezing as the cost of electricity here is rather steep.
The meal got the big thumbs up from my missus and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. We served it with a green salad and slices of fresh ciabatta bread.
I really enjoyed preparing this meal and I must say I am becoming a dab hand at making pasta and bread from scratch.
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