lazy lasagne

I’ve been planning this for a few weeks now. Planning to make the pasta, roast off fresh tomatoes and make a thick rich paste for flavour. At the weekend I decided to just do the quick version. We had some leftover italian pork sausages from a barbie, which added some spice.

Ingredients

1 large onion diced
3 gloves garlic diced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 italian pork sausages
3 rasher bacon
500g beef mince
2 tbsp tomato paste (or 4-5 tomatoes roasted for 2-3 hours at 150 C, then puree’d)
1 can of diced tomatoes (or 4 fresh tomatoes diced)
250 ml chicken stock

30g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
250 ml milk
3 tbsp grated parmesan
1/2 cup grated cheese (tasty is best)

6-8 dried pasta sheets

Heat oil in a large frypan and add onions, garlic, bacon, finely diced sausages and mince. Stir on high heat for 4-5 mins until brown. Add tomato paste, tomatoes and chicken stock and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer while you make the cheese sauce. The longer you leave this simmering the better the flavour.

Melt butter, stir in flour and cook for 1-2 minutes. Don’t let it go brown. Add the milk a little at a time stirring constantly until thickened. Add cheeses and stir.

If your dried pasta needs to be pre-cooked then follow packet instructions.

Lightly grease a baking dish and add a layer of meat sauce, pasta sheets, another layer of sauce, pasta, sauce, finishing with a layer of pasta and covering this with the cheese sauce. If your baking dish is big enough make double cheese sauce and put a layer somewhere in the middle. Sprinkle grated cheeses over the top and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden.

This tastes better reheated the next day, so great to make in advance. It freezes well too. Serve with a big green salad.

more muffins

Maybe it’s time I moved on from muffins. Over the past few months there have been some monumental disasters in the muffin tins. This could be because I have trouble following recipes. I don’t think that missing ingredients is an excuse not to bake something.

Substitute! I’ve seen the worst that can happen. It’s not pretty, but the cat will still eat it.

This week this has resulted in only one substitution disaster – a spicy mexican slow cooked pork dish that needed Annatto Seeds. I substituted hot paprika. Not good. I had to do a last minute dash to Red Rooster to feed the family.

But there was a substitution success – Morning Muffins from Allan Campiona nd Michele Curtis’ Food with Friends require hazelnuts, which I don’t have, so I chucked in some rolled oats in keeping with the breakfast theme. I also had two bananas that were dying of the black plague, so they went in too. Extra moisture means adding to the cooking time. It worked!

Morning Muffins

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
2 bananas
2 medium eggs
60ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

150g (1 cup) self raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

1 carrot, grated
1 apple, grated
60g sultanas
60g craisins
60g chopped walnuts
60g rolled oats

Mash bananas and sugar together and whisk in eggs, oil and vanilla extract. In a large bowl sift flour, cinnamon and salt. Add carrot, apple, sultanas, walnuts and rolled oats and mix. Pour in liquids and mix to combine.

Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake in preheated oven (180 C) for 20 mins or until risen and golden brown.