. : Lasagna

I thought it was well and truly overdue I shared with you my lasagna recipe with you all, it a rich full bodyed lasagna, and the sauce is better if you can make and let it simmer for all day.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons olive oil

1kg beef mince

1 onion diced

1tablespoon minced garlic

4 tablespoons Italian herb mix (dried herb mix)

4 tablespoons tomatoe paste

1 tin tomato purée

1tin crushed tomatoes

1 cup Red wine

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Lasagna sheets ( I like a lot of layers so I don't use heaps of sauce between, maybe 2 1/2 big serving spoon size fulls each layer so I use just 1 1/2 boxes of sheets).

Bechamel Sauce

60g butter

1/3 cup plain flour

4 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese

Salt and pepper

Method

Add oil to saucepan and soften onions then add garlic, don't burn then mince and brown, once cooked add tomato paste, dried herbs, brown sugar, (cayenne pepper if you like optional) salt and pepper and combine throughly. Then add tomato purée crushed tomatoes and red wine stir and simmer on a very low heat, the longer the better for approximately 6 hours, you will have a much richer fuller flavoured sauce. Always taste your food while cooking, so you can adjust your seasonings. (Like my Italian seasonings, I used different brand in this batch, and it didn't have enough oregano for my taste so I just added a little more oregano).

cheese sauce

Warm milk in microwave, melt butter in saucepan then add flour, combine until all the flour is taken up, slowly add the milk whisking continually so you don't have any lumps and sauce thickens, add cheese and salt and pepper to taste, you might like to adjust the cheese if you like it really cheesy just add more. Transfer to large jug ( easy way when assembling the lasagna) Always taste you food whilst cooking.

Assembly

In a rectangle baking dish, spoon a little of the sauce on the bottom this just stops the pasta sticking to the bottom. Then place a layer of lasagna sheets, then top with lasagna sauce then pour a thin layer of cheese sauce, repeats the sequence pasta sheets lasagna sauce cheese, making sure you last layer is lasagne sauce cheese sauce then add good handful of grated cheese and sprinkling of dried chives.