Vegetarian Lasagne

My days as a teenager working in a lunch bar making lasagne

of the meat variety for the bain marie came in handy when I remembered the first couple of hours of the day were spent doing

"prep". So "prep" I did. 4-5 medium onions chopped, 5 cloves garlic crushed- fry in olive oil (bottom left). Trees- aka to those over 4ft broccoli 2 heads, 5 carrots diced little (to be a child friendly vege sauce), One small butternut pumpkin cubed, One zucchini diced. One bunch of spinach washed and roughly chopped

Mix the fried onion and garlic with a catering sized can tomatoes (2.5kg) and catering sized can kidney beans (2kg). Add about 3 Tbsp tomato paste and carrot (I work on a principle of adding the things that need the most cooking first. Meanwhile roast the pumpkin

Its the little details that count. The roasted pumpkin tastes sweeter and has a soft yummy texture

Add broccoli and zucchini half way through the cooking process and the spinach at the end. It will cook in the oven when you layer the lasagne. Add Italian herbs (fresh if possible) and salt and pepper to taste

I am not much of a recipe person and telling you how I cooked the cheese sauce is a bit vague. A block of butter about 1 cup of corn flour (very rough estimate) mix together to make a paste, Add milk (about 1.5L-2L) and stir over low heat. Don't do anything else, make sure the baby's not due a breast feed(Or you have a wonderfully supporting husband who will take over gentle stirring and take your OCD directions...Keep stirring, get your spoon into the corners of the pan (do round pots have corners??). Cheese sauce requires all of your attention the whole time you're making it. When it thickens up add about 700g Cheese and fold in

Layer the vege sauce on the base of your chosen vessel

Place pasta on. It doesn't need to be pretty, I am not so good at cleanly breaking it but it all comes together well in the oven

Layers go vege sauce-pasta-vege sauce (and a drizzle of cheese sauce if you have enough)- pasta vege sauce- pasta then cheese sauce. 3 of my 4 lasagnes were missing the last layer of vege sauce and pasta once I realised i didn't have enough, On reflection I should have made 3 taller lasagnes but cest la vie

Bake for about 25 mins then take out the lasagne adding a layer of grated cheese, pepitas and paprika. These are the secret ingredients to give you the lovely crunchy homebaked look

Bake for another 25 minutes or so until delicious looking. The other key to lasagne is to cook it well before you need to eat or cut it. Rest for at least 4 hours otherwise it will all fall apart when you cut it. Overnight is better.

ENJOY

Lessons- You need almost triple the vege sauce to cheese sauce ratio. I was shocked when I realised my vege sauce wasn;t going to make it. In future i would use only one catering can of tomato, 2 of kidney beans which didn't seem to feature, and a bit more pumpkin. Maybe no trees if you have fussy kids. They don't hide well.

Any other suggestions?