Dish: Roasted Vegetable Lasagne
Difficulty: Coordination of the different parts was a little tricky, but otherwise fairly straight forward
Utensils Used: Wooden and serving spoons, spatula to serve, garlic crusher (at last!!), food processor (to do it properly)
Cock Ups: About 4. I lost count.
Recipe Book: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10603/roasted-vegetable-lasagne
Cooking: After tiring of my one and only cookbook and failing to remember to pick some new material up from my mother's, I resorted to google, and came across this recipe. Being a long time fan of lasagne, I thought I'd give it a go.
After heating the oven to 180, I cut up 3 peppers. The recipe specifies red, but I used green and red. Because I'm a rebel. Two aubergines were sliced thinly and I threw in one courgette for good measure, also cut into big chunks.
The veg was put on lightly greased baking trays, tossed with a bit of Olive *cough* Sunflower Oil, seasoned, then put in the oven for 25mins. I thought this would be ample time to make the tomato sauce. Hah.
Also, did I get a duff aubergine? I've never had them with this many seeds in before...
To make the tomato sauce I chopped an onion and crushed (the recipe said slice, but I got excited to use the crusher) two cloves of garlic. I missed out the carrot from the recipe. Mostly because I hate peeling them. This was cooked for about 5 minutes until softened.
Meanwhile I genuinely accidentally misread the amount of white wine required for 300ml instead of 200ml, but there was a fairly easy solution to that error...
Add 2tbps of tomato puree, or squeeze in a generous dollop if you are too lazy to try and scoop it out of the tablespoon measurer and then wash it afterwards.
Cook for a minute, then add the wine.
The Boyfriend came home as I reduced the wine/tomato puree/onion mix down by 2/3rds and announced that the house smelled like a pub. I took this to be a promising sign.
Once the mix was reduced, I added two cans of chopped tomatoes. The recipe asked for half quantities of the homemade tomato sauce, but I kinda forgot that til halfway through, so just reduced the amount of tins of tomatoes by one. I wish I'd just gone for three - there wasn't quite enough of it to cover the whole of the lasagne.
I also threw in a few mushrooms, as there were some looking slightly past their best in the fridge. The recipe then states 'add a handful of basil leaves then simmer for 20 mins.' So, um, Italian Style Seasoning counts right? After that, you were supposed to leave it to cool and food-process it. But I don't have a food processor, so I left it hot and lumpy.
By this point, I'd already opened the door of the oven and turned it off to stop the roasted veg from becoming charcoal. The Boyfriend was expecting dinner to be ready any moment, but, foolishly, I hadn't checked how long it takes to cook - 45mins at 160. I'd also, stupidly, left the door of the oven open too long, so it took ages to heat back up again...
Layer the veg, tomato sauce, lasagne sheets and white sauce (the recipe includes a homemade white sauce, but I was too lazy and just bought one). It's supposed to stretch to three layers, but I found the third a bit of a pinch. Over the final layer of lasagne, pour the remaining white sauce, then break up a ball of mozzarella and sprinkle across the top. I also added some cheddar. Just because.
Cook for 45 minutes.
Washing Up Required: Well, it still all fit in my half size dishwasher...
Result: It looked and smelled delicious. Definitely worth the effort to prepare.
Taste Test: While I was generally impressed with the effort (despite it needing about another 5 minutes in the oven) the Boyfriend was less enthused.
'It looks... Like lasagne.'
After a hesitant taste, he declared: 'It's alright. It's better than that shit you made last time, anyway. It's edible.'
Charming.
Overall Verdict: A bit of an effort, but tasty and with all the veg in there, you could probably even argue it's healthy.
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| Roasted Vegetable Lasagne |
