Courgette lasagne

I've been having some very strange dreams lately. I have been dreaming about people who have not been part of my life for a long time. A former colleague, who wanted me to give a talk about physics which I didn't understand anything about. Another night I dreamed about some old friends who were visiting me in my home. But my home wasn't my home, it was some other place. And then some other people showed up who were supposed to be my friends but I didn't know their names, so I couldn't introduce them to the friends who were already there. 

I think my vivid and restless dreams are because we have been watching Breaking Bad right before going to bed. I can't wait to finish the last few episodes, to get it over and done with. I don't want to watch anything so depressing and scary anymore. From now on, I will only watch period dramas and baking shows. Seriously, the older I get, the less violence and psychological drama I can take. I don't watch much TV anyways as I think it's mostly a waste of time. So if I decide to waste my time doing nothing at all but staring at yet another screen, I want it to make me all warm, fuzzy and happy. I keep re-watching my old Gilmore Girls, because they just don't make TV like that anymore.

The other day I was going to make a regular veggie lasagne as I have blogged about here. I popped out to the greenhouse to pick some tomatoes for the tomato sauce I spotted a few giant courgettes. So I thought, why on earth would I use pasta when I have these lovely courgettes instead. 

For me lasagne is all about the sauces. If you are going through the trouble to make lasagne, you want to do it right. And although making the sauces from scratch yourself takes some time, it's not that much work really. It's mostly about the sauces just bubbling away on their own while you can prepare the rest of the veg so you don't even waste any time. This makes a big batch, but the lasagne freezes well. I like to freeze it in serving sized portions and take with me to work for lunch.

Veggie lasagna (serves 8-10):

For the tomato sauce:

Tomatoes

6  cloves of garlic

1 onion

ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

For the bechamel sauce:

1 litre whole milk

1/2 onion

10 peppercorns

2 bay leaves

80 g butter

80 g flour

black pepper (and salt) to taste

olive oil spray

4 sweet peppers

1 onion

250 g kale

1 courgette

200 g feta cheese

6 lasagne sheets

(grated cheese or torn mozzarella for topping)

The howto:

Start by preparing the tomato and bechamel sauce. For the tomato sauce, chop tomatoes into quarters and remove the hard stems. Put the tomatoes in a large saucepan along with the bay leaves, black pepper and finely chopped garlic and onion. Bring slowly to a boil, and you will see the tomatoes start to give off liquid when heating up. Let cook for about an hour and remove from the heat. You can prepare the tomato sauce on the day before, or even freeze it for use later. For the bechamel, place the milk, roughly chopped onion, pepper and bay leaves in a large saucepan and slowly bring to a boil. When the milk has boiled, sieve it and put to the side. In a large saucepan melt the butter, and add the flour to form a thick paste. Let the paste cook for a minute or two and start adding the milk. Add milk 1/2 cup at a time, making sure you stir constantly with a balloon whisk to avoid any lumps from forming. Just be patient and keep adding milk a little at a time, stirring vigorously between additions and you will be rewarded with a beautiful, smooth, silky sauce. Season with salt and black pepper.

While preparing the sauces, roast the peppers. Preheat oven to 225 degrees and roughly chop peppers (I usually chop peppers into 6 big chunks). Place on an oven tray and lightly spray with olive oil. Roast for about 30 minutes, or until small dark patches start to appear on the pepper skins. Remove from oven and let cool. Finely slice the onion and roughly chop kale. Slice the courgette thinly. Lower the oven temperature to 200 degrees C. To assemble, start by placing sliced courgettes in a large oven proof dish. Top with half of the peppers, kale and feta cheese as well as tomato sauce and about a third of the bechamel. Add another layer of courgettes, peppers, kale, feta and sauces, and add a sprinkle of ground black pepper (and salt if you want to although the feta has a lot of salt, so I didn't find it necessary to add any salt). For the last layer, add the lasagne sheets and top with the remaining bechamel sauce (and grated cheese if using). Cook for about an hour, or until golden brown and bubbling. 

The verdict:

This was simply delicious. It does make such a difference to make everything from scratch yourself, and I do appreciate how lucky I am to be able to walk out to the greenhouse to pick the most amazingly sweet tomatoes (although that happiness doesn't last much longer as tomato season is drawing to a close soon). If you want to make it even healthier, you could leave out the cheese and lasagne noodles and replace with more courgette slices. I have to admit the carboholic in me likes to have at least that one layer of pasta on top, with a thick layer of bechamel sauce and some cheese. It just makes the whole thing so much more delicious. Also, the roasted peppers are absolutely brilliant. I cooked this along with a meat lasagne for the Culinary Consultant, and when tasting them both side by side I can honestly say I preferred the veggie one. 

Breakfast torta

We really like chunky big breakfast omelettes in this house. I often make a "English Breakfast" omelette which contains more or less the contents of an English Breakfast, i.e. chopped up bacon, sausages, tomatoes and mushrooms. I like to call it "Heart Attack Breakfast". But it takes quite a while to cook a big, chunky omelette in a skillet and it often tends to get very dark at the bottom before the top is done. Sometimes I make my omelettes in the oven, which helps them cook much more evenly, such as this tomato omelette. When I saw the recipe for this summer vegetable torta over at All Day I Dream About Food, I immediately knew it would be a great addition to our breakfasts as it's a bit more healthy and perfect for courgette season. I am constantly on the lookout for new courgette recipes, although I do have a few I am going to try so expect more courgette recipes in the near future.

I have made some modifications to the original recipe to accommodate what I had at hand. I left out the cream as I thought it was a bit superfluous. I also added in some bacon as I happened to have a few slices laying around waiting to be used up before going bad. I love that you can hide pretty much any leftovers in omelettes, perfect for a bit of a fridge clean to make sure you use up all those bits and bobs from the jars in the back. 

Almost vegetarian breakfast torta (serves about 8):
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3-4 slices of bacon, cut into strips
5 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 large courgette or a whole medium courgette
1 sweet pepper
2-3 sundried tomatoes
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
5 eggs
250 g cream cheese (I used Tesco Pesto flavoured lighter cream cheese)
2-3 tbsp finely cubed/grated leftover cheese bits (I used stilton and brie)
big handful chopped up herbs (I used flatleaf parsley)
pepper to taste

The howto:
Prepare the veg, finely chopiing onion, slicing mushrooms, bacon, sweet pepper and courgette. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (390 F). Heat up oil in a skillet, add onion and cook for a few minutes until onions turn translucent. Add bacon and cook for a few minutes, add mushrooms and cook a further few minutes, increasing the heat for a while if needed to make the mushroom juices evaporate. Add courgette and sweet pepper, balsamic and Worcestershire sauce. Let cook for about 10 minutes, or until veg are starting to soften but not mushy (they will keep on cooking in the oven). Take veggies off the heat. In a bowl, mix the eggs, cream cheese, cheese cubes/grated cheese, herbs and pepper. Mix with the veggies and pour into a oven proof dish and cook for about an hour (depending on the size of your dish and therefore the thickness of the torta you may need more or less). The torta is done when it's golden brown and no longer jiggles in the middle. I put mine in a round 25 cm silicone mould, and it was done to perfection after exactly one hour.

The verdict:
This is a somewhat healthier option compared to my usual sausage and bacon filled brunches but it was very tasty. I think using a flavoured cream cheese is a great idea as it brings a nice pop of flavour, you could use your favourite cheese. I like that it's a great way to work in extra veggies in your diet. It was tasty and the Culinary Consultant liked it as well. Although I'm sure it would work great without the bacon, we both thought it did add that nice little extra to contrast with all the veggies. It also worked great as a lunch at work the next few days. It contains a good amount of protein and is low carb, although with all the cheese it does add up to a bit of fat per serving. My calorie calculator gave the following nutritional info for one serving (1/8 of the torta): 211 kcal per serving, 15,9 g fat, 5.2 g carbs, 9.4 g protein.

When life gives you courgettes - make ratatouille

 

When I came home from holiday, I found two bad boys waiting for me in the fridge. And by that I mean two humongous courgettes. What else is a girl to do than make ratatouille? Also, eating a bit lighter is a great idea after my one week of all inclusive all day buffet holiday... We had hardly finished breakfast (you know, just a bit of scrambled eggs and bacon, maybe a fried egg as well, followed by a round of croissants and finished off with some donuts, slices of pineapple and watermelon) when it was lunchtime (although I admit we didn't make it to lunch every day as we were still digesting breakfast). And then came dinnertime with a full buffet of salads, cold cut meats, grilled fish and meats with all sorts of sides you could imagine, maybe a bit of pizza on the side, then the light round of cheese and crackers followed by dessert of fruits and small cakes and maybe to finish, you know just to cool off a bit, some chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and sprinkles). All this to keep us fuelled for a busy day of lying on the beach, reading a book or maybe even walking along the beach with our toes in the wet sand. But that is all over now. So hence the need for a bit of ratatouille. And what could be better now that the garden is starting to produce some ratatouille ingredients. Looking at the number of courgette plants, I better start coming up with some more recipes soon.

Apparently the secret to a good ratatouille (according to Delia, and who am I to argue) is that your veggies need to be chopped into large enough chunks so they don't turn into mush when cooking, but retain their shape. I loosely used Delia's ratatouille recipe as a rough guide, although I did make some alterations, and used whatever veggies I happened to have around. This makes quite a big batch, so we had some for dinner, I popped a bit in the freezer and took some with me to work for lunch.

InvisiblePinkRatatouille (serves 4-6):
1 large courgette
2 medium aubergines
13 medium tomatoes (because that's what I happened to have in the fridge)
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh thyme and basil
3 tbsp tomato puree

The howto:
Roughly cut your courgette and aubergines into large chunks, place into a colander, sprinkle generously with salt, and mix. Weigh them down with a few plates or something else appropriate and leave for an hour or two to drain. This will remove the bitter taste from the aubergines, and also remove liquid to keep the ratatouille from becoming soggy. In the meanwhile, peel the skins of the tomatoes. This is easiest if you score a little cross on the bottom of the tomato with a sharp knife, then dip the tomato in cooking water for about 30 seconds or so, and then submerge in ice cold water. You can then easily peel off the skin. Remove the tomato seeds, and cut the tomato flesh into rough chunks (I cut them in half, removed the seeds and left them that size). Also, roughly chop your onions into chunks, as well as the peppers. Finely chop the garlic.

When the courgettes and aubergines have drained, rinse off the salt in cold water, and pat them dry with a clean towel or kitchen roll. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan to medium heat and add the onions. Cook the onion until starting to soften. Then add the chopped garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add the courgettes and aubergines along with chopped thyme and basil (I just eyeballed it, but I think I used about 2 tbsp of fresh finely chopped basil ann 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves) with a bit of salt and pepper. Let cook for about 10 minutes. Add the red peppers and tomatoes, add the tomato puree, give it a good stir and let cook for another 10-15 minutes. The veggies should not be mushy, but keep their colour and shape, and the cooking time will depend on the size of your veggie chunks. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. I rarely use salt in my food, but here I think it helps bring out the flavour of the veg. Serve as a side with meat, or as a veggie main on it's own.

The verdict:
I know ratatouille purists will say you shouldn't put tomato puree in it, and I'm not sure if these are the correct proportions of ingredients. But it turned out really nice, and it was even better the next day. I used quite a bit of thyme, so if you are not a huge fan, just reduce the amount a bit. I know some ratatouille recipes add sugar, but I don't think it was needed. This is such a simple, healthy and beautifully colourful food, and you can adjust it to include/exclude whichever veggies you like/have in the garden.

Veggie lasagna

This week I decided to be a vegetarian. Not for any other reason that just because. I came across this post about being vegetarian for a month on A Cup of Jo, one of the blogs I'm following. I think the Culinary Consultant would rebel if I tried to introduce a month of vegetarianism in this house, but I decided he can put up with it for a week. 

I don't have an ethical problem with eating meat. I believe we need quite a bit of protein in our diet to cut out carbs, and meat is great for that. That should of course include a variety of white meat, fish and some read meat as well. Of course buying meat from animals who have lived a happy life and whose lives have been ended in the most humane way possible is always preferable over meat from intensely farmed animals. But it's also a balancing act with the financial constraints. Not a question I want to go into too much detail as I know I don't always practice what I preach or at least what I would prefer.

So this week, just to challenge myself to make new recipes, I went veggie. I tend to make the same old things over and over, and it was time to get new flavours into my food. And eating more veggies can never be bad for you. So I started with this delicious vegetarian lasagne which was an amalgamation of some recipes I've seen online and my own imagination. It does involve a bit of work with preparing sauced and veggies, but it's definitely worth the effort! Also, I would love to know how all the "real" food bloggers always manage to cut up their lasagne into these perfectly symmetrical square pieces which looks so great on the plate. Mine just ends up in a big sloppy pile no matter what I try to do. Oh well, it tastes great nonetheless.

Veggie lasagna (serves 6-8):
Tomato sauce:
about 20 tomatoes (or 2 jars of tinned tomatoes)
2 cloves of garlic
one sprig of rosemary
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 dried chilli (or more, depending on preference)
1 bay leaf
a pinch of sugar
salt and black pepper

Bechamel sauce from 1 litre of milk, see here for instructions

For the filling:
4 sweet peppers
4 onions (1 used 1 red and 3 yellow onions)
2 cups curly kale
garlic shoots (you know the greens that grow when you plant garlic cloves in the ground. If you don't have garlics growing in your garden, substitute with chives)
lasagna sheets
150 g mature cheddar

The howto:
Start by preparing the tomato sauce and Bechamel. The instructions can be found here. For the tomato sauce, if using fresh tomatoes, blanch and peel. If using frozen tomatoes (like I did), let them semi-thaw, at which stage it's easy to take out the hard green bit and peel off the skin. Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan and cook until desired consistency (i.e. not too runny), with my frozen tomatoes this took about 40 minutes of cooking without a lid.

While the sauces are cooking, chop the sweet peppers into large chunks, lightly coat in olive oil and roast in a 225 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes. Slice the onions and cook in a bit of olive oil in a frying pan until starting to soften. Grate the cheese.

Start by spreading a bit of Bechamel in the bottom of a oven proof dish, and top with lasagne sheets. Add a layer of Bechamel, half of the tomato sauce, half of the onions, peppers and kale. Add some chopped garlic shoots and some cheese. Add another layer of lasagne sheets and build an identical layer to the first one. Top with a final layer of pasta and pour the rest of the Bechamel on top and sprinkle grated cheese on top. Cook in a 200 degree oven for an hour until golden and bubbly.

The verdict:
I am so happy this lasagne turned out to be full of flavours and really delicious. The Culinary Consultant thought it wasn't too bad given the circumstance (i.e. the lack of dead animal). I have no qualms about making this again, to me it was at least as good as a regular lasagne, possibly even better. If you are going to make home made lasagne, it's without a doubt worth making your own Bechamel and tomato sauce, it just brings that extra flavour to it and is worth every extra minute you spend on cooking. Seriously, you have to try this. I suspected it would be a decent meal, but it was just amazing, the favours were so good. I rarely get completely overwhelmed by my own creations, but this was seriously good.