Homemade lasagna à la Ijeoma

Lasagna time! My most favourite dish ever and always an excuse to eat too much. Since I still work - and have to eat alone most of the time - I insisted on making this in the weekend so that I could be there too. 

I took this recipe from my mum, ages ago. The base is still the same, but I made some little changes which makes it better (in my humble opinion :p).

It's really different from the prepacked lasagnas you can find in any supermarket: there's not a lot of bechamel sauce to make the lasagna totally bland, it's full of vegetables and it's totally fresh!

Ingredients for 4-5:

- 1 kg carrots

- 2 zuchinis

- 3 bell peppers (red, green, yellow or any combination you like)

- olive oil

- 1 large onion

- 4 cloves of garlic

- 500 grams of minced (pork-veal) meat

- 1 teaspoon of cumin powder

- 1 tablespoon of herbes provençales

- 1 teaspoon of oregano

- chilli flakes to taste

- 2 small cans of tomato paste

- 200 grams Emmental cheese, grated

- 100 grams Parmigiano Reggiano

- 1 tablespoon of butter

- 1 tablespoon of flour

- 500 ml milk

- nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste

- lasagna sheets (about 9)

How to:

Cut all the vegetables, the onion and garlic in small cubes.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Fry the onion and the garlic in it.

Add the minced meat and stir continuously so that it doesn't get burned.

Now stir in the carrots. Put the lid on the pan and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add the peppers and leave them again with the lid on top of the pan. They have to have gotten tender.

Put the zuchini in with all of the herbs and the tomato paste. Make sure all is spread out evenly in the pan. Let simmer with the lid on for another 30-45 minutes.

Make a bechamel sauce with the butter, flour and milk. Season with the nutmeg, pepper and salt.

Now make the lasagna by layering the vegetable-meat sauce, the bechamel sauce, the grated cheese and sheets of lasagna (about 3 per layer). End with cheese so that the lasagna can get a nice crispy crust on top of it. Put enough sauce on the sheets of lasagne as they won't get tender when they're not wet.

Take from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes.

Serve in large enough portions (see picture ^^), you'll see that you just can't stop eating anyway ... 

It is simply too delicious to throw away the left-overs. Keep them aside and rehaet them in the oven. The taste is even better after a day!

We were only three this time. My sister wasn't at home, so we just divided the slightly smaller lasagna between the three of us. A lot! (I dicided to take a long walk with our dog to reduce my guilt about overeating :) )

P.S.: mushrooms in it are also a very nice option! Fry them a little and put them in the vegetable-meat sauce or make them as a seperate layer.

Buon apetito!

Vegetarian enchiladas

I came home today after babysitting and the weather - 27°C in the shade - made me change the plans for tonight. Instead of the minced meat ready in the fridge, I took out minced quorn and I made vegetarian enchiladas. The minced meat is for a chillier day, today we want exotic food! 

I've made enchiladas before and posted them on the website too, but these are different: they're veggie in disguise and they're filled with a chili con carne sauce. It's the first time I've tried to make something with minced quorn, so it's a risk. I hoped the quorn wouldn't be too dry. To make sure, I made extra tomato-pepper sauce so that it would compensate a little.

Ingredients for 4:
- 6 tortillas
- 1 can (200 grams) sweet corn
- 1 can (300 grams) kidney beans
- 1 small can (150 grams) white beans in tomato sauce
- 150 grams minced quorn
- 1 teaspoon of cumin powder
- pepper and salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- olive oil
- tomato-pepper sauce (as in the enchilada recipe some time ago)
- 200 grams of cheddar: half for in the enchiladas, half for topping them

How to:
Make the tomato-pepper sauce first. Set aside.
Fry the chopped onion and the peppers in the olive oil. Add the quorn and the garlic to this and a little of the tomato sauce so that it gets some liquid. Stir from time to time until the peppers are tender. Spice the mixture with cumin, pepper, salt and oregano. 

Add the beans and the corn and stir quickly. Make sure the beans don't get crushed.
Set aside.
Take the tortillas and after making a small layer of cheese, spoon the chili mixture over 4 of them. 

Cut the remaining 2 in half and put each half on one of the other (filled) tortillas. Now flip the sides of the lower tortilla so that you have a large roll.
Put the rolls (open side down) in a greased oven tray. 
Cover the rolls with the sauce so that nothing remains uncovered. Scatter the rest of the cheese on top of them.
Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour at 200°C. The cheese should've gotten golden brown in colour and the excess liquid from the sauce should have evaporated.

the enchilada served with some left-over corn, tomatoes
and cilantro for extra veggies

The verdict? My sister liked it very much, she said she wouldn't have known it was meatless if I hadn't told her. The taste is good. The quorn is slightly dry, but that's also the case with 100% pure beef mince (because it lacks the fat), so if you're not used to the juicy pork mince you'll be just fine! :D

Buon apetito!