You've Never Had Lasagne!!!

Three plates of Lasagne are shown, each with visible layers of pasta, meat sauce, and melted cheese. The word "Lasagne" appears at the top on a pink background. Fresh basil and parsley garnish two plates.

We were
walking around the supermarket last week. Getting all our weekly groceries when
we stopped upon the fresh ready meals. I was quite in the mood for a curry for
tea but really wasn’t in the cooking mood so was thinking of just buying one.
Well Simon doesn’t like curry so he was looking for something else.

Hotpot, shepherds pie and then lasagne. ‘I’ve never had lasagne before’ I heard
from my husband. What?! You’ve never had lasagne before?! How? Why?

Simon explained that because his mum didn’t like pasta, they never had it and
so he’s never tried lasagne. He didn’t even know what was in it. I was gob
smacked and so took it upon myself to get all the ingredients and make my own
to show him how nice they can be.

Now before you start thinking that this is gunna be a work of art recipe, all
home made, it’s not. No I didn’t make the red or white sauces and no I didn’t
mince the beef myself but I added the flavours, the oomph and the love.

A selection of groceries for making lasagne, including jars of red and white Ragu sauce, minced beef, mild Cheddar cheese, mushrooms, three onions, peppers, and a pack of lasagne sheets—all on a white background.

Note: We were in Asda at the time which is why it’s all their products

As you can see in the picture, these are all the ingredients I used. Making
home made food doesn’t have to mean cooking from scratch, it can be adding your
own spices, your own flavourings and doing your own take on dishes.

A lasagne may look hard to make but it’s actually quite simple. Just follow
these simple steps and your done.

A rectangular casserole dish with golden-brown baked lasagne sits on an oven shelf inside the oven.

1. Fry the mince on a medium heat until browned and then drain off excess
grease.

2. Pour the red sauce into a bowl and add the cooked mince. At this point you
can add any extras you want to. We went for finely chopped onions, mushrooms
and peppers (orange peppers – read my tip at the bottom of this post) and mix together.

3. The pasta sheets need boiling to soften. We went for fresh pasta sheets so
they only needed a few minutes. Dried pasta will need longer.

4. Now this is where we layer it up. Start by putting a big spoonful of the
mince mixture into an oven dish and spread it out.
You then add a pasta sheet over the top of the mince and then a small layer of
white sauce.
Keep layering it up in this order until the oven dish is nearly full and the
white sauce is at the top.

5. Finish with a sprinkle of grated cheese and place in the oven on about 180c
for about 40 minutes, until the top has gone golden brown.

6. Serve with seasonal veg or any you happen to get you hands on. This time we
went for peas, carrots, sweetcorn and new potatoes.

A plate with a slice of lasagne—classic Italian food—several boiled potatoes, and a mix of carrots, peas, and sweetcorn on a black plate with white floral patterns. A fork is visible in the background.

That’s it! Lasagne made simple.

I must admit that for my first ever attempt at lasagne, it was pretty darn
good. Even the ever fussy Simon, my husband, enjoyed it and it will definitely
be on our dinner table again.

Tip
Orange peppers are always supplied in the pack of three traffic light peppers pack but most of the time these are thrown away due to people not liking their taste. Did you know that orange peppers contain only 30 calories and 0 fat. They also contain 190% of the daily recommended intake of vitamin C, 2g of fibre in each one and are full of antioxidants. They are in fact the best peppers you can get. Dishes like this are a great way to slip in orange peppers as the taste is not so prominent when mixed with everything else.