lasagne

When I was younger, I did not attempt to make lasagne as I had always had the impression that it was a difficult dish to cook.

However, I have since picked up a box of lasagne and read the cooking instructions. It was easier than I thought.

What makes a good lasagne are the pasta sauce and the cheese. I use grated mozarella cheese but whenever available, I will use a mixture of grated mozarella cheese and grated cheddar cheese. The more cheese in the dish, the more tasty! Better yet, sprinkle bacon bits on top of the lasagne before you place the loaf pan in the oven.

As for the pasta sauce, you could stick to the basics and cook minced meat (ideally beef but do feel free to substitute with other types of meat if you do not eat beef) in tomato-based sauce.

My friend recently told me that the recipes in my blog are quite easy to follow. These are recipes that I have either created or modified. I do not have much spare time and I do not have enough culinary skills to be familiar with some of the lesser known ingredients or steps in some recipes that I have come across. As such, whenever I cook or bake, I would like to have as easy to follow a recipe as possible.

Let me share a secret with you when it comes to making lasagne. If you have a slow cooker (crock pot) at home, you may want to make a big batch of pasta sauce using the slow cooker. The pasta sauce can be used for the following:-

(a) spaghetti

(b) lasagne

(c) pizza

See? With one pot of pasta sauce, you would have created three dishes for your dinner party!

I generally make my pasta sauce from scratch (that is, using tomato paste, tomato puree, etc). However, if you prefer, you can buy the pasta sauce that is available in the supermarket as that would cut down on your preparation time.

Here is a simple recipe for lasagne that you may want to try. I am not including the proportion for each ingredient for the sauce as it would depend on the size of your slow cooker.

Ingredients

pasta sauce
minced meat (ideally beef but you can substitute with other types of meat
chicken fillet (cut into cubes)
celery
red capsicum
green capsicum
yellow capsicum
cubed pineapple
cherry tomatoes
Japanese enoki mushrooms
button mushrooms (or a mixture of fresh mushrooms)
broccoli
cooking sherry
Worcestershire sauce
tomato sauce
sugar
bacon bits
grated parmesan cheese
grated mozarella cheese (or a mixture of grated mozarella cheese and grated cheddar cheese)
uncooked sheets of lasagne

Method

1. Pour the pasta sauce into the slow cooker and set the slow cooker at HIGH.

2. Marinate the minced meat and cubed chicken fillet with cooking sherry and Worcestershire sauce. Set aside.

3. Cut the vegetables into bite-sized pieces and put them in the slow cooker. Stir well.

4. Add the marinated meat into the slow cooker and stir well until the meat disperses.

5. Add the tomato sauce, grated parmesan cheese and sugar to taste.

6. Sprinkle a liberal amount of bacon bits and stir thoroughly.

7. Change the temperature setting to AUTO and leave the sauce to cook.

8. When the sauce is cooked, you are ready to prepare the lasagne.

(a) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

(b) Line the inside of a loaf pan with aluminium foil.

(c) Spread a layer of sauce onto the loaf pan.

(d) Add a sheet of uncooked lasagne.

(e) Add a layer of sauce.

(f) Sprinkle cover the layer of sauce with grated cheese.

(g) Repeat steps (d) to (f) until you reach the top of the loaf pan. The top layer should be the cheese layer.

(h) Sprinkle bacon bits onto top of the lasagne and bake at 180 degrees celsius for 30 minutes.