Beef and Vegetable Lasagne w/ Eggplant Pasta

Out of the Ord - Eggplant

Here is the last beef lasagne recipe you'll ever need, plenty of flavour, muchos protein using delicious vegetables as the 'pasta' layers. ​So depending on how heavy your cheese hand is this is one healthy and delicious dinner.

This serving size is pretty big, it cuts out at about 8 portions, so you can freeze it or reduce the quantities as you see fit. You can swap any of the vegetables for pasta if that tickles your fancy - or only use one type if you prefer - for example there are so many eggplants in town at the moment you could use only eggplants - up to you :)

​I've included at the bottom of this post a series of images showing the layering, check it out.
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​Peace Out! T-Bomb

​Ingredients:
Meat Sauce

• 1kg (4 star) beef mince
• 2 onions, sliced thinly
• 1 jar garden vegetable pasta sauce
• ½ jar arrabbiata pasta sauce

‘Pasta’ Layers

• ½ bush squash, sliced thinly
• ¼ kent pumpkin, sliced thinly*
• 2 eggplants, sliced thinly
• 3 red capsicum, sliced thinly

Cheese Sauce

• About 2 cups milk
• A knob of butter
• 3 large handfuls of grated cheddar cheese
• Some flour

Method:

1. To cook meat sauce, place onions in a pan with a little oil, fry over high heat until soft. Add beef mince and cook until browned. Pour in both pasta sauces and reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes or until the liquid has reduced to your liking. Remove from heat and set aside until you’re ready to assemble the lasagne.
2. While meat sauce is simmering slice all the vegetables, and grill on the BBQ until bendy and charred (see picture), allow to cool, then peel skin off the capsicum and cut the rind off the pumpkin.
3. For the cheese sauce, I find making more than you think you need is a good idea (hence the quantities being super vague- sorry!). I start by pouring the equivalent amount of milk (with respect to the amount of sauce I want) into a pot, adding the knob of butter and turning the stove on to a low heat. Then, add enough cheese so that buying that big bag wasn’t a waste, thank me later... Once it’s hot (don’t let it boil) and the cheese has melted into the milk and butter, sprinkle some flour into the pot and using a whisk beat the cheese sauce until all the lumps are smooth.
4. Now, time to layer the lasagne I built mine as follows: bush squash, meat sauce, cheese sauce, pumpkin, meat sauce, cheese sauce, eggplant, meat sauce, cheese sauce, capsicum, cheese sauce (3 layers of meat, 4 layers of cheese – with the top layer being the largest).
5. Then cover with foil and place in the stove at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.
6. Remove foil and cook for another 30 minutes, serve – with a green salad or on its own.

Notes:

• Pumpkin: leave the rind on – it keeps the pumpkin in one piece and you can cut off the rind once cooled.

cooking the meat and cheese sauces.... yep I needed some beer-spiration... xxxx style

All the elements ready for assembly...

extreme close-up!

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Bush squash (bottom layer), with meat and cheese sauces splashed on top

Pumpkin (second layer) with meat and chees sauce

eggplant (third layer) - delicious yummy eggplant

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capsicum (final layer), skin removed

Cheese sauce for the top layer

Finished product

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