Planet Veggie

I seem to be going through a pasta and pizza phase at the moment. We had spaghetti on Friday, chilled supermarket pizza on Saturday, Papa John’s delivery pizza on Sunday, pasta bake on Monday and lasagne tonight.

Tonight’s lasagne was from the Quorn Kitchen cookbook. It contains pesto and The Meat Eater’s not a huge fan of pesto but recently he said he’s ok with it in stuff, just not when it’s the main part. So, I thought I’d be ok with a bit of pesto in a lasagne but after a couple of mouthfuls he asked what was the ingredient that tasted of perfume. Unlike me, that boy has well-developed tastebuds – I would never pass the palate test on Masterchef.

Anyway, forget what he says about it tasting of perfume, it doesn’t. It just has a slight pesto kick to it which is ace (obviously only if you like pesto).

I didn’t stick rigidly to the recipe; I used Sainsbury’s meat-free mince instead of Quorn, green pesto instead of red pesto (it’s hard to find veggie red pesto), and used red wine vinegar instead of real wine.

Quorn Lasagne
Serves 4

300g Quorn Mince
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
100g mushrooms diced
400g passata
3 tbsp red pesto
1 tsp dried oregano
3 tbsp red wine – fruity red
1/2 tsp sugar
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, torn
8 lasagne sheets

Cheese sauce

25g butter
25g plain flour
300ml semi-skimmed milk
100g mature Cheddar cheese, grated

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes until softened. Add the diced mushrooms and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
2. Stir in the Quorn Mince and then add the passata, red pesto, oregano, wine, sugar and vegetable stock cube. Gently simmer for 8 minutes. Season to taste and stir in the basil. Remove from the heat.
3. Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce by melting the butter in a pan and slowly stir in the flour. Slowly add the milk stirring continuously to avoid lumps, until it thickens. Stir in three quarters of the grated cheese, keeping the remainder for the top of the lasagne.
4. To assemble the dish, put 2 pasta sheets in the base of a lightly greased shallow ovenproof dish. Spoon a third of the mixture on the lasagne sheets. Repeat these layers finishing with a layer of lasagne. Pour over the cheese sauce, scatter over the remaining cheese and bake in the oven for 25 minutes until the top is golden brown and bubbling.