One thing I noticed during my “veggie week” is how much one begins to miss meat after a while. Indeed, I have been salivating profusely ever since I began preparing this evening’s steak and ale pie around an hour ago – which will receive it’s own blog when I get around to it. However, I do feel decidedly healthier following this “experiment”, if that’s what it’s called. Being a vegetarian seems to really force you to eat a wide variety of new, exciting and unexpected foods, most of which are extremely “healthy” and low in calories and fat. I definitely feel like I’ve been getting my “five a day”, which is good because it’s good for the brain and, it being the exam period, I need as much brain power as I can get.
This was the first time I’d ever tried courgette, and while I’m not convinced, if you love or even like courgette this dish is for you. If you don’t like courgette simply remove the layer. The spinach on top of this beauty also makes for a rather nice change from lasagna topped with only a bechamel roux. This dish will take around 45 minutes to make.
Vegetarian Lasagna {recipe}
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 1 courgette, sliced or peeled into strips
- 5 medium sized button mushrooms
- 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 medium sized onion, diced
- two good handfuls of fresh spinach
- 1 clove of garlic, mashed
- 400g tin chopped, or peeled, tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 10-12 sheets of egg lasagna
- 70g extra mature cheddar cheese
- lettuce, enough for four
- 2 tomatoes
- 1/2 pint of milk
- tablespoon or so of plain flour
- knob of butter
- seasoning
- olive oil
- Fry the onions in oil until they become translucent. Add the garlic, mushrooms and pepper and cook for a few minutes. Then add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and balsamic vinegar. Reduce for 5 minutes. Season to taste. You’ll want to do then next step at roughly the same time as this.
- Take your knob of butter and melt it in a saucepan on a gentle heat. To this add the flour and stir until you have a smooth roux. To this add roughly half a pint of milk and two thirds of the cheese. Stir and season to taste. When it’s ready it should be thick enough to pour, but it should also leave a thick-ish coating on the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200C. In your oven dish, which can be of any reasonable size, begin to layer up the lasagna. First there should be a layer of the tomato mixture – use roughly half. Then a layer of lasagna sheets. Then the layer of courgette, as depicted. Followed by another layer of lasagna. Top this with the rest of the tomato and add a final layer of lasagna. Take your cheese sauce and fold in the spinach, wait to the spinach to slightly wilt. Spoon this on to the top of the lasagna, drizzle with olive oil and put in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Serve with a side salad, and perhaps some bread or potato wedges.
Looks very good. I do like courgettes and find them very useful as a filler for this kind of dish.
Yeh that’s one thing that can be said in favour of them… still not a massive fan though. Perhaps I’ll come round eventually…
Ooh that looks delicious! I adore courgettes so highly appealing!!
It was delicious… I really didn’t miss the meat. I think the trick is getting the tomato sauce just right.
This looks delicious! I used to hate courgettes, I found them too watery when they were chopped chunky. I now love them because I do thin slices with the peeler as you have, then I roast them with garlic, herbs, chilli flakes and olive oil for about 25 minutes until they’re all browned and crispy, so good! Thanks for your lovely comments on my blog, nice to “meet” you!
Well, that’s quite alright! I’ve decided to try and integrate myself a little more with the blogging community! Maybe I’ll give that a try, I just find the flavour a little weird. I think the thin slices method is the way to go because if you don’t like them… you can easily avoid tasting them too much. Nice to “meet” you too.
Pingback: 20 ways to prepare zucchini – Down-Home South Jersey