Homemade Tomato Pasta Sauce

I'm blogging today from Sri Lanka! And I am anxious to get this out as quickly as possible. Last year when I was here fresh tomatoes were so expensive that I could not afford to make any sauce. I used concentrated tomatoes from a can instead. It tasted okay but you can't beat fresh pasta sauce. So when I arrived this week and found that tomatoes were in season and rather cheap (for Sri Lanka that is) I had to make my mum some pasta sauce. I am sure that some of my friends out there will find this recipe rather useful. It is adapted from http://www.food.com/recipe/fresh-tomato-spaghetti-sauce-10837?photo=349134

Preparation time: 2 hours makes about 500 ml  

Ingredients:

1 kg	Tomatoes
100 g	Onions
3 cloves	Garlic
2 tbsp.	Oil
1/2 tsp.	Salt
1 tbsp.	Sugar
1 tsp.	Dried herbs

Method:

The riper/redder your tomatoes are the redder and tastier your sauce will be. Mine were a bit green and thus my end product was orange as opposed to red. It still tastes delicious.

The first project is to skin the tomatoes. To do this, put a large pot of water on the stove and bring it to a rolling boil. While the water is boiling score the bottom of the tomatoes. This will help you to peel them.

Carefully put the tomatoes into the water making sure that they are completely covered. Bring the water back to boiling point and after 1 minute remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and run under cold water. If you leave the tomatoes a bit longer it will not harm them after all they are going to be cooked later anyway. The tomatoes should be blistered and the skins loose. I think I left mine in a bit longer than 1 minute.

Carefully remove the skins and then coarsely chop the tomatoes. Finely chop the onions and crush the garlic. If you like a lot of garlic in your sauce, go ahead and add more. This is your sauce you can make sure that it is to your very own taste.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan. To get the most authentic taste use olive oil. My mum would not part with her last tablespoon of olive oil, which is totally understandable given the price of it. I used sunflower oil but I am pretty sure you could use any available oil. I would not use unrefined coconut oil because it will make the sauce taste anything but Italian.

Add the onions and the garlic to the oil and simmer for around 3 minutes until the onions are soft. Then add the tomatoes and remaining ingredients. Now as I just said, "this is your sauce". You can add what ever you like to it. My mother requested that the next batch be made with some chili in it. You can also add different types of herbs and spices. I made mine with dried herbs because no fresh ones were available, but any type of fresh herb would be great. Traditionally Italian would be basil and organo but I would love to try it with coriander leaves. So go ahead and put what ever you like in there.

Bring your sauce to the boil and then reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours. Basically what you are doing is concentrating it so that it has the correct consistency. If you like your sauce chunky then you are done. If you want a smoother paste then you'll either need to cool it and then put it in a liquidizer or use a stick thingy. My mother opted for a smoother sauce.

Once the sauce is thick enough you can either directly use it for your spaghetti, lasagna, pizza or whatever else calls for pasta sauce or you can jar it for later use.

To preserve your pasta sauce wash and dry enough glass jars to hold 500 ml of liquid, place a metal spoon in the glass jar and place it on a dry surface. The spoon apparently stops the jar from cracking when you pour in the boiling sauce. I always put my jars on the draining board of my sink just in case they crack. I have yet to have a jar crack. Now boil some water and fill the jars to the brim with the boiling water. Let it sit for a couple of minutes. While it is sitting, reboil your sauce then quickly empty the jars of boiling water and replace it with the boiling sauce. Place a piece of clean cling wrap on top of the jar and close immediately. The less bacteria you get in it the longer it will keep. My guess is that with this method the sauce can be kept for around 6 months. But please keep in mind that this is just a guess and you should check the sauce before you use it.

Spinach Pie

Spinach pie has been a firm favourite in our household for a very long time. While it tastes best when made with fresh spinach it is still worth making if you have only frozen spinach. My kids eat this without any objection.

Preparation time: 2 hours (see directions for time savers). Serves 6  

Ingredients:

8 oz	Flour
4 oz	Butter
1/4 tsp.	Salt
	Cold water
1 large	Onion
1 -2 cloves	Garlic
450 g	Fresh spinach
50 g	Cheese (Parmesan is best)
150 ml	Cream
3 tbsp.	Ground almonds
1	Egg yolk
	Fresh nutmeg, ground
	Salt and pepper, to taste
15 g	Pine nuts (optional)

Method:

The pastry is the first thing that needs to be made. It's best if you make it a couple of hours before, wrap it in cling wrap and put it in the fridge to rest. Having said that, it will not hurt to use it immediately after making. The only difference will be more shrinkage. The instructions for making pastry can be found here.

The filling is pretty easy to make. Wash your spinach and if the leaves are very big roughly chop them. I used baby spinach and thus didn't have to do any chopping, just washing. Wash fresh spinach very carefully because it has the tendency to be extremely muddy. If you are in Sri Lanka you will have to remove the thick stems and use only the leaves (450 g without stems). Stems on European and American spinach are fine.

Put the spinach in a very large pan and heat over medium high heat with the lid closed until the spinach wilts. While the spinach is cooking dice the onion and mince the garlic. Remove the spinach from the pan and squeeze some of the liquid out. You don't need to make it dry, just get rid of some of the water. If the spinach is too hot to handle run some cold water over it.

If you are using frozen spinach the process is as follows: defrost the spinach, squeeze out excess water. This way you can reduce the preparation time of this dish by at least 15 minutes.

Set your oven to 180 C/190 C/ 375 F (fan/conventional). Remove your pastry from the fridge and roll it out to fit your dish. I used a 9 inch cake spring form because my 10 inch Quiche form had to be retired and I hadn't gotten round to buying a new one. Bake blind for 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime place the pan back on the cooker, dry it out (either with a paper towel or by heating it up) and put the oil in to heat. Once the oil is hot add the onions and garlic and cook until soft, about 1 - 2 minutes. Add the spinach and stir through. Remove from the stove.

Mix in the cream, half the cheese, ground almonds and egg yolk in that order. The most important part is to add the egg yolk at the very end. By the time you add the yolk the mixture should be cool enough to prevent the egg from getting cooked. If your egg yolk gets cooked then the quiche will not set. All is not lost if this happens to you. Just allow the mixture to cool a bit more and add another egg yolk. If you do not have almonds you can use a couple of substitutes. I can imagine that you could use ground cashew as an alternative but that can also be expensive. To minimise cost use 1.5 tbsp. of flour as a substitute. Mix it in carefully so as not to form lumps. You might consider mixing it into the cream and then putting it into the spinach. Again be careful when putting the flour into something hot least it gets cooked and turns into "paappa". Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

By now your pastry should be done. Take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and pop it back in the oven for another 5 - 10 minutes (until the base is baked). If pressed for time don't hesitate to skip putting it back in the oven. The worst that will happen is the base will be a bit under cooked. Once the base is cooked pour in the filling, sprinkle on the remaining cheese and the pine nuts.

Reduce the heat of the oven to 160 C and put the pie in the oven for a further 10 - 15 minutes or until the pie is set.

Serve hot, warm or cold!!

No bake pan pizzas

A good friend of mine asked me to post some new recipes. To which my answer was "what would you like?" and here you have the answer to the answer to that question!! These are quick to make, don't require an oven and taste good even cold. Yes! Perfect for a school snack!

Preparation time: 45 minutes. Makes 6 small pizzas about 10.5 cm in diameter or one large one

Ingredients:

225 g	Flour
1 tsp	Baking powder
1/4 tsp	Salt
4 tbsp	Oil
4 tbsp.	Sugar Water, room temperature
400 ml	Pasta sauce, tomato
150 g	Cheese

Toppings: Mozzarella, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, Italian herbs, coriander leaves (and for those of you who are not veggie: any kind of cooked meat or fish)

Method:

Prepare your toppings first. Since the pizza will not be going in the oven your toppings won't cook very well. There are two things you can do to prevent a disaster. Either cut your vegetables very thinly so that they cook quickly (and use vegetables that you could eat raw) or cook your vegetables quickly before hand. You could just stir fry them or grill them very quickly. If you do use meat you will have to cook it first, you could use left overs and crumble, or cut, the meat/fish up.

Sift the dry ingredients together and make a well in the middle. Pour in the 2 tbsp. of oil and 4 tbsp. water and mix together to form a hard dough.

You might need to add some extra water depending on the type of flour that you use but the dough should be soft but not soggy. Knead it until it is smooth and then roll it out on to a board. Make the dough as thin as you possibly can without having any holes in it.

When you fry the pizzas the dough will expand due to the baking powder making it much thicker. My initial attempts gave me a dough that was too thick. It was tasty, and we ate it all up, but it was very filling and did not look pretty. I then used a large round cookie cutter to cut the dough into shape. Alternatively you could make it into small balls and then either roll it out, or just press it into shape in your hand.

Put 1 tbsp. of oil into your frying pan and fry gently for 5 minutes or until the base is cooked and slightly brown.

Turn the dough out of the frying pan. Put in the rest of the oil and reheat it. Flip the dough and put it back in the pan. Quickly put your sauce onto the pizza, don't go too close to the edges so prevent the sauce from dripping into the hot oil and making a mess. Then put the other toppings on. Finally sprinkle the cheese on top. Now if you happen to be somewhere in the world where you cannot just crack open a bottle of pasta sauce (or it is too expensive to do so) there are some options. You can make a pasta sauce out of fresh tomatoes or out of tomato puree. I have recipes for both of these, they are eiter in my head or somewhere  on a piece of paper. I'm pretty sure that the one with tomato puree is in my head because I made it last time I was in Sri Lanka. It is just going to take a while for me to figure out the proportions. The recipe using fresh tomatoes .... well it might be a while before I dig it out!!

Then cover the frying pan with a lid and fry until the cheese has melted. If you don't have a lid you can cover the top with aluminium foil or once the dough is cooked you can put the pizza under the grill to melt the cheese.

Serve the pizza hot or cold. The fried base tastes really good if you use a lot of oil because you basically have something deep fried!

Enjoy!

Rhubarb, Strawberry Crumble

This summer we spent a couple of weeks in England. While visiting good friends of ours in London we were introduced to their allotment. The English version of the German "Klein Garten". Among the vegetables there was a bed of Rhubarb. Our friend lamented that she didn't know what to do with them and wanted to uproot them and throw them away. My kids went a bit crazy and objected to throwing away rhubarb! They made me promise to make a rhubarb crumble for them and harvested some stalks.

The next morning I was bound to the kitchen to produce a rhubarb crumble. Now this would have been fine except I realized that I had not yet posted my crumble recipe and could not find anything even close on the internet. So I winged it!

This motivated me to write up the recipe so that next time my kids persuade me to bake while on vacation that at least I have a recipe!

Preparation time: 1.5 hours. Serves 8 

Ingredients:

750 - 1000g	Fruit (1/2 rhubarb, 1/2 strawberry)
3 tbsp.	Sugar
1	Lemon, zest
200 g	Butter (margarine if you are vegan)
200 g	Sugar
3 drops	Vanilla
200 g	Ground almonds
240 g	Flour
1-2 tbsp.	Powdered sugar/ icing sugar
1 tsp.	Ground cinnamon
2 tbsp.	Brown sugar

Method:

If you are using rhubarb, peel and cut it finely. Add the 3 tbsp. sugar and the lemon zest to it and set aside. Chop the strawberries coarsely, but do not add them to the rhubarb. The rhubarb needs to sit in the sugar. The time it needs to sit is the time that you need to make the mix for the pastry part of the crumble. You can use any other fruit with this recipe. If the fruit takes a long time to cook you might consider pre-cooking it.

Melt the butter at a very low heat. Take care not to get it too hot else it will cook the other ingredients and you don't want this. I suggest putting it in the microwave and heating it for 30 seconds. Take it out and stir it. If it is not completely melted put it back in for a further 10-20 seconds, take it out and then stir it again. By stirring it you are cooling it down and distributing the heat. The butter just needs to be liquid. If you happen to have over heated your butter wait until it has cooled to proceed.

Now mix everything together except the fruit, the brown sugar and the cinnamon. Mix it with a wooden spoon. Try not to smash it together. You are not forming a batter but crumbs. You could also use your fingers but be very gentle.

Press half of the crumbles on to the bottom of a 26 cm diameter round form. I use a tart case at home. You can also use a ceramic tart dish, it just takes a bit longer to bake. Also I can never get it out of the pan so I like to use a ceramic dish if I am taking it somewhere. If you are looking for something that looks good once served on a plate, this is not the recipe for you. This is if you want something that tastes amazing and is relatively easy to make.

Once the first half of the crumbles are in, distribute the fruit on top. Then put the rest of the crumbles on top of the fruit. Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar and the cinnamon.

Bake at 190 C (in a fan oven) for about 25 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold with ice cream, custard, whipped cream or clotted cream.

Falafel

Some recipes take a long time to perfect. For me, falafel was one of them. I say "was" because I finally got them just right. I don't usually make things over and over again until I get them right like some people do. After all I am the working mother of two and really don't have the time for all that. So over the last 6 years I've worked on my falafel recipe. I remember making it the first time in my fancy new deep fryer. I popped them in and when I opened the lid a few minutes later all I found were dark brown crumbs. I cleaned up the mess and put the second batch in and watched as layer by layer the falafel mixture separated from the ball. I finally made enough for dinner by pan frying them!
But now they look like this:

We like our falafel full of flavour, crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. It turns out that the moist on the inside is what was killing me. I experimented a bit with a few different shapes and the shape didn't seem to make a difference. The girls really loved the bite sized falafel, ideal for an appetizer served up with a bit of hummus.

Preparation time: 2 hours. Serves 4  

Ingredients:

4	Scallions (or 1 onion)
2 Cloves	Garlic
1/2 Cup	Cilantro leaves
1/4 Cup	Mint leaves
14 oz can	Chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3/4 Cup	Bread crumbs
1/4 Cup	Flour
1 heaped tsp.	Ground cumin
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1 tsp.	Salt
2	Green Chillies, optional
1 l	Oil, for frying

Method:

First of all let me tell you why I was getting falafel crumbs instead of proper falafel. There were two reasons:

1. The balls were too moist.

2. The oil was not the correct temperature. 

The moisture problem occurs whatever you try to deep fry. If you are Sri Lankan, you will know the trouble of trying to keep your cutlets together. Well guess what? It's the same problem. There is too much moisture inside the ball and when it's put into hot oil something happens (I haven't yet figured out what!) and BOOM your lovely ball explodes, or slowly starts shedding!! "But...", you say, "I want my balls to be juicy!". Well, as I have learnt you can't have everything and you have to sacrifice a little to get what you want i.e. a perfect falafel.

To avoid the crumbs I have added flour to my recipe. This binds together the moisture that comes from the chickpeas. To get rid of excess moisture take your chick peas out of the can, rinse them and then let them drain in a colander until you are done with the rest of the ingredients. You can also use dried chickpeas. Of course this takes a lot of time. Soak them over night, boil them well and then drain. Some places advise you to squeeze the moisture out of the chickpeas by putting them in muslin cloth and squeezing them. You can do this, but your falafel will be super dry. 

Once your chickpeas are draining roughly chop the scallions (red onions if you are in SL), garlic, cilantro and  mint leaves (and green Chillies, if using). Put them in a food processor and finely mince. 

Next add the chick peas and mince until it looks like bread crumbs. Finally add everything else, except the oil, and pulse. 

How much you pulp it depends on your taste. We personally like our falafel to have texture so we go for a grainy look. 

Now you are wondering why it takes so long to make the falafel because up to now things have been pretty easy, right? Well now you have to make the balls and unless you have some helpers to help form them it's going to take a while. For the cocktail sized balls I used one tablespoon of mixture, for the regular balls I used a small handful (once I made the ball it comfortably fit inside a quarter cup). You need to press them together really hard so that there are no cracks. Don't try rolling them, they will just crumble. So squeeze your balls into shape!!

Now here comes another trick: leave your balls on the counter top for an hour or more and they will dry out, making them less likely to crack when frying. Don't put them in the fridge.
Fry them in oil between 175 and 180 Celsius. And make sure that there is enough oil in your saucepan so that the falafel are not touching the bottom of the pan. This will cause them to fry unevenly. I fry 2-3 at a time and keep an eye on the oil temperature. Every time you put falafel into the oil the temperature drops so be careful. Drain on absorbent paper.

We like to put our falafel in a wrap with hummus, cucumber raita and tabouli. But you can just as well eat it without wrapping it up. Make sure you have something moist to eat it with hummus is good but some type of yogurt dip is even better.

Enjoy!

Milk Toffee - Sri Lankan Style - for dummies

Finally I get to write my milk toffee post!

The art of making milk toffee is supposedly simple. You just mix sweetened condensed milk, a bit of water and sugar together and cook it until it is done. Everyone has their own special ratio of ingredients and they all claim to yield milk toffees. The fact that they are so easy to make has left me stumped and feeling stupid for over 30 years!

My first encounter with milk toffee was through our gardeners wife. She worked in the tuck shop at my school. Of course the tuck shop was in the secondary school and I was in elementary school at the time. On some days she would pass by to see her husband on her way home from work and she would bring us a bag of crumbs, left over from the bulk production of milk toffees in the tuck shop. They were delicious and I couldn't wait to get to secondary school so that I could bust my pocket money on them. Finally when I arrived in secondary school I was placed in a classroom that was in the same building as the tuck shop. You have to imagine, it was just one long hall divided into three sections with wooden screens. Two sixth grade classes and the tuck shop. The smells were tantalising. I continued to get crumbs out the back door until our gardeners wife left for better things. My mother did not, and still does not, make milk toffee but she did hire the gardeners wife to make us some every now and then. Absolutely delicious stuff.
In sixth grade the girls taking home science as a subject learned to make milk toffee in class. I took needlework with a handful of others. Our teacher took pity on us and agreed to sneak in a milk toffee session when she could get the kitchen and no one else was around. This was fantastic. I thought I would learn how to make milk toffee and that I did. I learned that you could make them to perfection in just 2 periods and that just because you take home science doesn't mean that you can cook!
So I went through bouts of phases where I tried to make milk toffee. They always tasted good but they never came out quite like I wanted them and they took me hours to make. I never quite got the hang of it.
I tried to make them sporadically over the years but my husband was quite against any sudden craves for milk toffee because it would entail me standing at the cooker for a good 3 hours. Then one year, not so long ago, my aunt from Toronto came to visit us in Germany. She made me milk toffee and showed me the trick of dropping the mixture into a glass of cold water and then "testing" it. Her milk toffee were always perfect. However, I still had trouble because when I made mine alone I was never quite sure if the consistency was correct.
Last time I was home, in Sri Lanka, I craved milk toffee. I figured the easiest thing to do was to go to the store and buy some. But was I disappointed! The were all sugary and nothing like the smooth morsels that I remember from my childhood. I tried making a batch for my birthday party but although everyone said they tasted delicious I knew that they were not what I was striving for. A month of so ago I decided to try out making milk toffee with a sugar thermometer and after a couple of tries I think I've gotten the trick. I still can't figure out the cold water technique but I sure know how to read a thermometer. So now I have the privilege of sharing my milk toffee recipe for all of you who could never get it just right. I am glad that I have managed this and it would be a sin to keep it to myself because I am sure there are many more of you out there who have experienced similar problems with milk toffee.
This recipe is from Ranjini Nandi, who lives in Toronto with all of her family (who enjoy her wonderful cooking all the time).

So here we go. Lets call it "milk toffee for dummies"!

Preparation time: 30 min. Serves 8 - 24 depending on the sweetness of the tooth!

Ingredients:

1 can (400g)	Sweetened condensed milk (Milkmaid)
1 lb/500g	Sugar
1tbsp/ 1 pkt.	Vanilla essence / Vanilla sugar
1/4 can	Water
3 oz	Nuts (Cashew, almonds, hazelnuts etc.)
	Butter, for oiling the tray

Method:

First of all you need to prepare the tray. Any baking tray is fine but don't use  a non-stick as you have to cut the toffees in it and you don't want to get any Teflon on them. If your tray is smaller the toffees will be thicker. If your tray is to big then they will be thinner but the toffee you pour into your tray is so viscous that it will not get too thin. Rub butter all over your tray. This gives the toffee a good taste and prevents it from sticking. Then take something to flatten the toffees. Traditionally one would use a fresh banana leaf but I don't usually have any. Foil has been suggested but it doesn't work for me because the toffee is too hot. You can use a wooden board if you can find one that fits inside your baking tray. I used a flexible chopping board. Whatever you use butter this well.

In a large, heavy bottomed pan (no non-stick pans, you will ruin it when you scrape out the crumbs and what is the joy in making milk toffee if you cannot scrape the pan and eat all the crumbs when no one is looking! Make sure your pan is about twice the size as your ingredients and that it has handles that do not heat up) mix the condensed milk, sugar and water. If you are using vanilla sugar mix it in too. Put the pan on medium-high heat. Stir vigorously until all the sugar has dissolved. If you don't do this your end product will be grainy.  Bring the mixture to the boil. 

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL. THE BUBBLES WILL BURST AND SHOOT OUT VERY HOT LIQUID SUGAR SYRUP, WHICH WILL BURN. IF THIS HAPPENS RUN AFFECTED AREA IMMEDIATELY UNDER COLD WATER. RESIST THE URGE TO LICK OFF THE SUGAR SYRUP THUS BURNING YOUR TOUNGE IN THE PROCESS (talking from experience).

Reduce the heat, if necessary, so that the mixture continues to bubble but does not bubble over. During this state you can stir occasionally (takes me about 10 - 15 min.). While this is going on chop your nuts. Traditionally cashew nuts are used but almonds and hazelnuts work well too. Walnuts don't do it for me, they do not complement the taste of the toffee. You can leave out the nuts and the toffee will still taste good.

Observe your pot closely, stirring occasionally. At some point you will notice small pieces of "toffee" (dark lumps, probably burning sugar) forming in your nice milky goo. At this point you need to start stirring constantly. If you don't your toffee will not be the smooth tuck shop type but the grainy type that you can now buy in the stores. It is now time to take out your sugar thermometer and monitor the heat of your brew. It seems to boil at around 112 C and continue this way for a while. All of a sudden the temperature will start to rise and when it hits 125 C it is time to take it out. Don't worry if it goes over this. It most certainly will because the metamorphism happens so fast. Just be careful of one thing, make sure your thermometer is not hitting the bottom of your pan. This can give you a false reading resulting in milk toffee that will not harden.

Add your nuts and vanilla essence (if using) to the mixture, stir in and pour the very hot sugar mixture into the prepared pan. Press down with the other board or banana leaf. Let the toffee stand for a while and then once it is hard enough to stay put and soft enough to cut, cut it into pieces. The size depends on your personal preference. I prefer smaller pieces then you can just take more if you like it!

Voila! A batch of delicious milk toffee!!

Additional things to add to your milk toffee: dates or any type of dried fruit, cocoa powder dissolved first in hot water (add at around 112 C).
My kids would like me to pour melted chocolate on top. I'll try this some time because it sounds delicious.

Vegetarian Lasanga

A few moments to make something a bit more time consuming!

This is not even going to be a recipe because you I totally forgot to weigh any of my ingredients.

All of our family love lasagna. But not all lasagna's. Obviously meat is off the list and so is spinach and feta (much loved in the USA). Other vegetables are quite okay. I used to have a recipe for a seafood lasagna but I got rid of it when we moved to Germany. [If I gave YOU the seafood cookbook, please copy the lasagna recipe and send it to me. It was my husbands favourite!]

Today's lasagna has egg plant, zucchini, mushrooms and corn in it. The corn is unusual and only found it's way in there because there was half a can left in the fridge.

As I said above, lasagna is time consuming. You can cut down the time by buying pre-made sauces, good lasagna and pre-grated cheese (I just learned how to spell lasagne!!). You can also divide the work up and prepare everything in advance so all you have to do is put the dish together and stick it in the oven. Great if you have time in the evening after the kids have gone to bed and not so much time the next day before dinner. Don't put the lasagna together and let it sit. The liquid will all run to the bottom and there will not be enough to cook the pasta on the top layers. Also the bottom layers will be over cooked because they have too much liquid.

For this lasagna all you need is:

4 Zucchini

3 Eggplants

400g Button Mushrooms

1 large onion

3 large cloves garlic, crushed (we love garlic)

1/2 can of corn

600 ml pre-made pasta sauce (tomato)

350 ml Milk

200 ml Cream

1 Tbsp flour

250 g grated cheese

200 g dried lasagna pasta

Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Oregano and basil (other herbs can be used)

A huge list as you can see...

The first thing you need to do is cook the vegetables. Slice the zucchini and eggplant to about 1 cm thickness. If needed sprinkle the eggplant with salt and allow to stand for 30 minutes, then wash off the salt (I usually skip this step). I used to fry my eggplant and zucchini, but I don't any more because it takes too long and uses up too much oil. Instead I brush them with oil and put them under the grill. Less mess and they don't need to be watched all the time. I grill them at 240 C until they are golden. The kids babysitter asked me how long I grilled them for and I can honestly say "I have no idea". Just grill them till they are golden on one side and then flip them over and grill on the other side. You can of course fry them if you don't have a grill, it tastes better because of the extra oil.

While you are grilling the vegetables dice the mushrooms and the onions. In a heavy bottomed pan saute the crushed garlic. If you don't like garlic you can leave it out or use less. My house always stinks of garlic after we've made lasagna, but it is a nice stink that none of us can smell. Then add the mushroom and the onions and saute until the mushrooms start letting some juice.

Sprinkle a heaped tablespoon of flour over the mushrooms and mix it in. Then pour in the milk and then the cream. Now I was going to make this without cream, and that would have been completely okay, but I just could not resist. The added calories of course give added taste. You can also use a cream substitute or soya milk. It will still taste delicious. (I've tried both, with the cream substitute no one notices the difference. It just costs more.) Bring the sauce to the boil, stirring all the time. Allow it to bubble a bit until the sauce gets thick.

Remove from the heat and stir in the corn, herbs (washed and chopped), salt and pepper. For the herbs use what ever you happen to have. Currently I have basil, oregano and rosemary sitting on my windowsill. I figured the rosemary would not match so I just used the other two.

Now once the vegetables are done you can put the dish together.

I use Barilla lasagna pasta. The reason is that it does not need to be cooked before hand and it is the closest I can get to fresh lasagna pasta. When I'm in Sri Lanka I just make the pasta from scratch but that adds another couple of hours to the preparation time. Not for the busy mother!

The first layer is lasagna and then I put some mushroom sauce on top making sure that all the pasta is covered so that it gets cooked properly. Then came a layer of eggplant; a layer of pasta; zucchini, mushroom sauce, tomato pasta sauce; layer of pasta; left over mushroom sauce; eggplant; tomato sauce; layer of pasta; grated cheese. Oh this sounds so easy when one writes it down, doesn't it?

Of course the pasta never fits exactly in the dish. I break mine so that it fits and make sure that there is overlap. I was just told that if you overlap it the pasta might not cook but that is why you need to make sure there is enough liquid covering it. I have one dish which has rounded edges. For that one, at least for the top layer, I have to patchwork it with little pieces.

Since I didn't put any liquid on the very top most layer I pressed the pasta down so that it would get wet. Sometimes I leave a bit of the white sauce to put over the very top layer before I put the cheese on (I seriously recommend remembering to do this). I guess you could also put pasta sauce on the very top, but it probably would not look very good. Should do nothing to the taste though. 

I also always estimate the amount of vegetables I need incorrectly. The solution is to make a small lasagna on the side (if there is too much) with what ever happens to be left over (currently the left over lasagna in the oven has eggplant, zucchini and a lot of pasta sauce, in it). Lasagna freezes well, and makes a wonderful pack lunch to take to work. Even if its not the best lasagna it sure beats cafeteria food. 

The cheese that you choose to use will also effect the taste of the dish. I used a cheap emmental. In Sri Lanka I use a local gouda. In the USA a cheddar. If I wanted to be really fancy I think I would use a mixture of original Swiss emmental and gruyere.

Gosh, I almost forgot. Bake your lasagna in the oven for around 30 - 40 minutes at 180 C in a fan oven. 200 C (400 F) in a conventional oven. Allow it to cool a bit before serving if you would like it to stay like a tower when you serve it. Be warned, it could fall over and the sauce could run out but it will still taste delicious. Now I just need everyone to get home from their various activities i.e. gymnastics and swimming, so that I can have dinner. Sitting here and staring at this lasagna has made me hungry!!