/ Lasagne with greens /

Our kids have something against eating greens. They do like vegetables, but the color green on their plates is a guaranteed ugly face to start with and then comes some convincing to try the dish.

That’s the wonderful thing of the lasagne with greens. In this recipe, we alternate a layer of pasta with a layer of Zucchini and the kids love it! The zucchini gives the dish a rather soft veggy taste, it keeps all its nutritional benefits…. and let’s face it… it is just delicious!

This is again a “slow food” dish perfect for the weekend in autumn and winter. It takes a little more than 90 min to prepare and cook. We actually frequently cook this plate with the kids, as they can actively participate to the sauce making or even to the assemblage at the end.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 box of dry lasagne pasta
2 Carrot
1 Onion
1 Celery stick
1 Zucchini
400 gr minced meat
2 cups vegetable stock
Tomato concentrate
60gr unsalted butter
60gr flour
60cl. milk
Olive oil
salt, pepper, muskatnuss, laurel leave
1 pack lasagne pasta

Bolognese

Prepare the bolognese sauce as described in my previous post here. This will take about 1 hour, so start this part with enough time...

Béchamel

Melt the butter in a sauce pan and add the flour while mixing without stopping and without letting the mix to turn dark.

Then start adding a bit of milk and always mixing with a Steel whisk until it turns thick (don’t let it boil). Every time the sauce becomes thick, then add a bit more milk and repeat until all the milk has been added.

Add the salt, pepper and muskatnuss as appropriate.

Assemblage

Have ready an oven form that is at least 5 cm high, where you will prepare the lasagne

Slice the Zucchini in thin layers along the length and have ready enough pasta layers.

start by pouring 1 Tsp olive oil, 1 Tsp béchamel and a bit of bolognese sauce to the bottom of the oven form. Place a first layer of pasta.
Add another layer of bolognese sauce and some béchamel sauce. Make sure that the béchamel is covering the corners and borders of the layer. Add a little bit of grated parmigiana cheese.
Add a layer of zucchini. And repeat the process starting with the bolognese. Then continue alternating pasta and zucchini layers.
The final layer should be a pasta layer followed by the rest of the béchamel. Add mozzarella grated cheese on top
Cover with aluminium foil and put in the oven at 200 C for about 20 min. Then remove the aluminium foil and keep in the oven for another 20 min. This will give it the golden colour.
Take the lasagne out of the oven and let it rest/cool before serving.