Vegetarian lasagne

Vegetarian lasagne

Lightly grease a large oven dish. Pour a thin layer of tomato puree over the base.

Place a layer of instant lasagne sheets on top of the tomato puree. Some lasagne sheets need to be cooked first, but these ones are instant. You can also use macaroni, but if you use macaroni you need to cook it first, and then you can spread it in a thin layer, instead of lasagne.

Spread a thin layer of vegetables on top of the lasagne. This is chopped zucchini. You can use whichever vegetables you like. Just be aware that if you use hard vegetables, you will need to partially cook them separately, before you spread them on the lasagne sheets. I partially cooked this chopped zucchini.

Then pour some more tomato puree over the top of the vegetable layer.

Top with more lasagne sheets...

Place another layer of vegetables. I have chosen to use grilled eggplant, but I know your family don’t like eggplant. I recommend using orange sweet potato instead. If you slice it thinly, and partially cook it separately first, it works well in lasagne. To grill eggplant, lightly bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes, after brushing with a little oil. I do this with capsicum, too.

Top with more tomato puree.

And more lasagne. You can see here that I have sprinkled the lasagne sheets with a little bit of water. This helps the lasagne to stay more moist during cooking, because the lasagne sheets absorb moisture as they cook.

Top with another layer of vegetable. I have used chopped celery, and grilled capsicum.

More tomato puree... You can always sprinkle a little bit of dried basil or oregano on top of the tomato puree, if you like dried herbs.

Melt about 70 grams of butter in a saucepan.

Melted butter

Add approximately 3 tablespoons of flour to the melted butter.

Stir the butter and flour together, on the heat, for two minutes. This ‘cooks’ the flour.

Add about 600 or 700 mls (millilitres) of milk.

Whisk continuously over medium heat until the sauce thickens.

Add about ¾ of a cup of grated cheese.

And some pepper, if you like pepper.

Spread the cheese sauce mixture on top of the last layer of tomato puree.

Sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in the oven for about an hour on 180 degrees, until lasagne is tender and the cheese has melted and turned golden brown. (Mine hasn’t gone in the oven yet, so I don’t have a photo of the finished product, but you can imagine what it will look like). The dish on the right is a vegetable quiche. I think I have already sent you the quiche recipe. Let me know if I haven’t.

And then you have to clean up all the mess! Luckily, I have a little, cheeky helper...