Homemade lasagna

When planning the meals for a weekend at boat I try to include in the menu something elaborated and nice, whenever time allows. All familly's favourite is homemade lasagne. Since the oven in our boat is not the best and overall space there is limited, I always prepare this dish at home on the day prior to departure. It makes an easy meal then, as it only needs warming up. What is more, it tastes better on the next day :)  

As said above, it is rather elaborated dish and preparing it takes some 2 hours. Usually we have it in meat version, but you can set your fantasy free and pick almost anyting for the filling. This time I used the following:

Lasagna pasta (homemade or ready)

500 g minced meat

1 onion

3 carrots

salt

pepper

1 aubergine

about 200g of ricotta cheese

about 200g of Grana Padano cheese (can be replaced by parmiggiano or pecorino)

Basilico leaves

Sauce:

2 tbs olive oil

1 clove of garlic

1,5 l canned chopped tomatos ( can be replaced by loads of fresh ones, of course)

Preparation:

Normally I start with the sauce and meat. In one large pan put the olive oil and garlic, add the chopped tomatoes, diluted with water. Let it boil for some 30 mins, making sure it  remains rather liquid (adding more water whenever it getts thick is necessary) and stirring frequently. Add salt according to taste. Add some basilico leaves when ready, but still boiling hot.

In a frying pan put some oil, add chopped carrots and onion and let them soften. Add minced meat and fry untill ready. Add spices and salt  and some 3 spoons of the boiled tomato sauce. It will make the meat juicier.

Once ready, leave minced meat aside. In the same pan put the aubergines and fry till soft. At the end add a couple of spoons of the tomato sauce. Add salt/ pepper according to taste.

 In a deep flat dish start making layers:

some sauce at the bottom, a layer of pasta, than meat, aubegines, some ricotta cheese and some grana padano, cover all by the sauce. Repeat untill run out of ingredients.

Hint: make sure you cover all layers very well with the tomao sauce, otherwise lasagne will be dry. And don't worry if the sauce seems too liquid, it will get thicker in the oven.

Normally on top I put more grana padano cheese and lots of basilico leaves, as you can see above.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Bake for some 50 mins. 

Hint: Served best after a couple of hours (or even the day after), to let the ingredients and flavours settle.  

And again asparagus :)

Asparagus season is so short, that it is a must to invent different ways to prepare it. So this time I opted for the pie. The choice was also based on the idea that it would be easy to take with us to the boat tomorrow (if ever we happen to go there, since my hubby is down with the flu).

As to the ingredients of the filling, it could basically be almost anything: cheese, mushrooms, bacon, ham, salmon.. or whatever you can invent. This time I had in the fridge some feta cheese, which was a good match to rather tasteless asparagus. 

So you would need:

500 g of frozen ready-made puff pastry

500 g of asparagus 

6 eggs

200 ml of cream 

1 pack of feta cheese 

any other ingredients of your choice  

It is also rather easy to make:

1. Peal and boil for some minutes asparagus.

2. Chop all the other ingredients

3. Mix well eggs and cream (add salt/pepper according to taste)

4. Put the pastry in the baking shape

5. Put the filling in and pour egg&cream for last.

It took some 45 min at 200 C oven and some 20 minutes to let it cool.

Voilá! :)

Asparagus with chicken and avocado-spread cheese paté

Here it finally comes, the first post on cooking :) Somehow at boat I am inspired to make slightly better food than what we normally have at home. In addition last Saturday we had a good reason to have something nice: boat was in the sea + my hubby had his birthday.

So the menu was: 

• Bacon-wrapped asparagus
• Curry chicken
• Avocado&spread cheese paté

In the glass:

• Val d'Oca Millesimato Prosecco Extra Dry
• Rawson's Retreat, Shiraz - Sauvignon

Inspiration for asparagus came from Kipparin morsian post, and was slighlty modified and adopted to available ingredients. I can share the recipie by reqest in comments.

A glass of sparking wine was a propoer aperetif :)

And later in the evening some dessert: prosciutto crudo, pecorino romano and parmiggiano reggiano with a glass of red wine.

Life is good, no matter nice cheese board is still at home ;)