So there are moments when the bottom drawers of our fridge gets so full of old and soggy vegetables that you just wanna throw them all away....but don't do that. It is time to make a crazy lasagna, which means that you pretty much use all the veggies that are going old in your fridge. See I am trying to come up more and more with recipes based on what I already have as opposed to going to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients of a new exciting recipe. This has been a game changer for me....it is called: reverse planning and it is sheer gold this piece of advice about working backwards when it comes to cooking. So today was that day, and even though it is still 33 degrees outside and I did not want to turn my oven on, it was clear to me that it was crazy lasagna day.
This recipe I have kinda based it on this classic recipe of Mary Berry. but really have just kinda done my own thing. It is very simple and what I use to season and give it flavour are 3 ingredients: Worcester sauce, lots of pepper and salt, that's it.
INGREDIENTS:
-500 grams of mince.
-1 onion.
-4-5 garlic cloves.
-4 or 5 carrots.
-2 or 3 celery stalks.
-basil leaves.
-1 courgette.-some broccoli.
-200 ml of bechamel/white sauce.
-50 ml of tomato sauce.
-a package of lasagna pasta.
-20o grams of grated cheese.
-black and white pepper.
-5 tablespoons of Worcester sauce.
-salt.
STEPS:
1. Prepare the meat. Sautee in frying 2 garlic cloves and half an onion until traslucent. Now add the meat, a good pinch of salt and the worcester sauce and let it simmer a little, until the mince has soaked up all the flavour. Now clean up your wok and reserve the meat.2. With the rest of the onion and the garlic left dice it up and cook again until traslucent.
3. Now in the meantime, start peeling your vegetables in small pieces and cook them in a wok in low fire. They will begin to soften. Honestly there is no order of adding the veggies here, it is a bit of a chaotic situation, and that is why this recipe is so great, cause anything kinda goes. Just let them simmer there a bit and toss around for about 15 minutes.
Very important : add carrots sliced with a potato pealer, this is really the only ingredient that is a must.4. Season all the vegetables with black pepper and a tiny bit of salt but mostly black and a little white pepper.
5. Now add the meat to the veggies and mix together for about 10 minutes. All the flavour will come together the peppery vegetables and the mince that tastes like Worcester sauce. Yum!
6. Now assemble the lasagna using precooked lasagna sheets. I dip mine in warm water for 10 minutes so that it is softer. So layer of pasta, layer of white sauce, a little tomato sauce, and layer of meat. I do this twice. Be generous, there are only 2 layers of meat to create. I add a little of pepper after every layer so that it adds that interesting touch.
7. Now top layer, layer of pasta, layer of white sauce, a dab of tomato sauce anddddddddddddddd lots of cheese. The whole package of 200 grams has to go in.
8. Turn your oven on, top and bottom at 220 degrees and stick it in. The cheese will cook and burn a little which is great, because it creates this harder crunchy cheesy top that is just a great addition to the softness of the lasagna.
9. Leave it there for 30 minutes until everything kinda marries together and voila! You've got a meal for 2 days at least.
I like this recipe is a lot and guess what: my fridge looks so much cleaner!
We had some old figs and it turned out amazingly, the way the sugar melts is incredible, it becomes this amazing paste. So here is the magic recipe and the proportions, which is basically that you add 1/2 of sugar of the amount of fruit, so for 1 kg of fruit you add 500 grams of sugar. The sugar and the lemon are the preservers.
1. Cut up your figs in little pieces and place in a pot, add the juice of a lemon.
