Vegetable Lasagne

This vegetable lasagne has a kick as it's made from a portion from batch cooking Vegetable Chilli.  I'm also a fan of actual flavour so the bechamel sauce usually found in a lasagne is replaced with cheese sauce.

If you've just made your batch of Vegetable Chilli, you can always construct this and freeze it, although I let it all go cold and construct it with undercooked pasta so it doesn't all absorb into a gooey mess when it's defrosted.  It's also best cooked from frozen.

So how to...

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 batch of defrosted (or fresh) Vegetable Chilli
Milk
Butter
Plain Flour
Cheese
Salt
Lasagne sheets (Fresh or Dried)

Method:

1.  Melt two tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan

2.  Using a wooden spoon (yes, vital!) sprinkle over a tablespoon of flour and mix into the butter.  Keep doing this until you have a tight ball resembling play-doh

3. Pour a little milk in a bit at a time and stir in to loosen the roux (or play-doh as I just referred to it!!).  Stir really well and get rid of the lumps.  Keep going at this until you have a consistency where it coats the back of the wooden spoon but still runs off.

4.  Take of the heat and grate in the cheese.  I use medium strength cheese.  Mix well until its melted in.  Keep tasting until you get the cheesiness you desire.  Take off the heat and put to one side.

5.  Now to construct the lasagne.  In an oven proof dish, place a layer of chilli, top with a layer of pasta, place a layer of cheese sauce.  Repeat and end with a cheese sauce layer with a pasta layer on top.  Grate cheese on top.

6.  Cook in the oven for about an hour until the pasta has softened up.

7.  Serve with an italian salad of beef tomatoes and mozzarella - Yum!