Lasagna a la Michael

It takes time to prepare lasagna. It is a wonderful dish, which can be made in numerous variations. Traditionally lasagna is a rather rich dish, but it can easily be made with a minimum of oils and still taste darned good. Lasagna is also inexpensive food, and I speak highly for it!

Lasagna consists of layers, which are placed in a metal or oven proof glass pan to be baked. The layers are sauces, which are prepared individually and separated by pasta strips. They are available in any supermarket. Once you understand the basic composition (white sauce alternating with other layers, separated by pasta strips, topped with a white layer) lasagna is an easy dish to prepare. It takes some time, but everything can be prepared in advance.

You need at least two different sauces for a lasagna:

Let me show you a couple of recipes:

The baked sauce

The white sauce is made in a skillet by itself. I use these ingredients: I use half skim milk and half water. Heat that in a pot and add the flour as you stir. The parmesan cheese and the spices are essential for the proper taste. The sauce must be thick and you need plenty of it. A slight burn on the bottom of the pot is almost unavoidable, but you can retrieve almost all of the sauce without including the burned part.

The tomato/meat/vegetable layer

I always start with lots of chopped onion (preferably red onion) and garlic, which I simmer in olive oil together with pepper and a small amount of chili.

On top of this you can add ground turkey meat, or you can skip the meat. In that case chopped white cabbage adds a good filler (you have to fry this this for at least 30 minutes). Depending on the season you could use other vegetables such as diced Celery

Now we need to add the tomato - peeled and diced tomatos (can be canned) and possibly tomato paste . The tomatos are important. I like to use herbes de provence (timian, basil, and oregano). Parsley is good, and of course you need to add salt and pepper. 

Other layers

I like to add additional layers to the lasagna, such as:

The composition

The lasagna is built in alternating white and red layers separated by pasta strips. An ordinary skillet can handle six pasta strips in each layer. I usually start with some red sauce on the botton. Then pasta strips, next white sauce topped with a little red. Then strips and a generous layer of red sauce, then strips and white sauce. Remember to press the pasta strips into the sauce to cover them. They must not touch each other.

Finally add a generous white layer. You can use the regular white sauce.

Pasta salad

Pasta salad is made from some cooked pasta like salad macaroni or egg noodles. Then in a big bowl you mix: Mix it all together and let it sit.

Then you can sautee onion and garlic in olive oil with pepper and chili until they are tender. Fry with the mushrooms and finally add diced chicken meat. You add this to the the salad and stir it all together.

Put the salad in the refrigerator and eat it cold, or you could serve it warm. Bon appetit!