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Monday 1 June 2009

An anniversary lasagne



Yesterday we celebrated our first year of marriage by making a lasagne and watching Flight of the Conchords while Jasmine slept. A good test for any relationship is how long you can last in a small hot kitchen together and I think after living together for a few years we may have finally mastered it, sort of.

I haven't attempted a lasagne since I dropped the one Adam and I made about a year ago, so this time I was VERY careful when taking it out of the oven.

Anniversary lasagne

What you need
1 jar of good quality tomato pasta sauce
1 eggplant, sliced 5mm thin
2 red capsicums
2 courgettes, sliced 5mm thin
1 bunch chopped, cooked and drained spinach
1 bunch asparagus
Adam's homemade pasta dough (we used 500g of '00' flour and 5 medium eggs)
1 mozzarella ball
mature cheddar cheese
handful of pine nuts

The do
Heat up a griddle pan until super hot, and grill the veg - if you don't have a griddle pan a fry pan will also do the trick. Set aside.
Roll out the pasta into sheets with the pasta machine until you get to the number 4 setting. Cut the sheets to size and cook two at a time for a few minutes in a big pot of salted boiling water. Fish out with tongs and throw into a big bowl of cold water.
In a 30cmx20cm baking dish, pressing each layer down firmly as you go:
- spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce
- then a layer of pasta
- courgette and half of the spinach
- layer of pasta
- tomato sauce
- eggplant
- layer of pasta
- capsicum and the rest of the spinach
- layer of pasta
- asparagus
then cover with grated mature cheddar cheese and mozzarella. Sprinkle pine nuts on top. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Dollop on some of the tomato sauce.
Bake in oven for about 45 minutes or until heated through and brown on top. Serve with rocket leaves dressed with a little balsamic and olive oil.

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