Georgina's Lasagne

I don’t know about you but once the clocks go backwards and it becomes dark and cold in the evenings I feel like warming and delicious food to eat here are a few of my favourites. They are not super speedy but worth the cooking time!

I love my lasagne as it has no fast carbs in it ie no pasta or flour but is still delicious. I have recently discovered an interesting replacement for flour in the béchamel sauce which is arrowroot. It is fantastic to use as a thickening agent as it is grain free and comes from tubers in tropical climates.

Serves 4 – 6
Preparation time 30 mins approx.
Cooking time 60 minutes

Ingredients
2 Large onions finely chopped
800 grammes Organic minced beef
2 Tins of organic chopped tomatoes
2 Packets of ready prepared butternut squash sheets
2 Ball’s of mozzarella
50g Freshly grated parmezan
A Teaspoon of chopped oregano
I Garlic clove, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon of  Lea and Perrins
250ml Organic beef stock
Half a tube of organic tomato puree
A glass of red wine – optional

Method
Put the oven on at 180c/160c gas

To make the sauce fry the chopped onion, garlic and oregano with 2 tablespoons of olive oil until soft.

Remove from frying pan 

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and cook 800g organic beef mince in two batches for about 10 mins until browned all over. Once brown add the tomato paste and lea and perrins. 

Pour over 800g passata or two tins of chopped tomatoes add 200ml hot beef stock, add the red wine at this point and a good grind of black pepper.

Bring up to the boil, then simmer for 30 mins until the sauce looks rich.

Heat oven to 180C/fan/160C/gas 4 and lightly oil an ovenproof dish

Spoon one third of the meat sauce into the dish, then cover with some fresh butternut squash sheets. Cover the sheet with the bechamel sauce.

Repeat until you have 3 layers of butternut squash. In between the layers scatter a few squares of mozzarella cheese. Cover with the remaining sauce, making sure you can’t see any of the sheets of butternut squash poking through. Scatter on top of this grated parmesan cheese to cover and any remaining mozzarella cheese.

Put into the oven and cook for approx. 40 minutes until lightly brown and bubbling.

Bechamel Sauce
Preparation: 5 min
Cook: 10 mins

Ingredients
60g Butter
60g arrowroot powder
600ml milk
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
Freshly ground pepper and a little salt to taste

Method
Mix the arrowroot powder with a little room temperature water to create a mixture before adding to the hot butter.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium-low heat

Stir in the arrowroot powder and cook on a low heat for 5 minutes continue to stir. Whisk in the milk at the same time stirring continuously until you have a smooth thick sauce.  Add the nutmeg as you are doing it.