Beef Lasagne

My older sis lived in Italy with her family for a long time and her mother-in-law made sure she taught her every Italian dish known to man. The first time I had lasagne at my sister's I was pleasantly surprised at the rush of creamy cheesy flavour and the herbal fullness of my sisters lasagne and made up my mind I would have a go at preparing mine one day.  Earlier this month on one of my many grocery shopping trips, I was kinda surprised to find lasagne sheets in Nigeria and remembered my lasagne ambition, I picked up a pack and started planning my recipe.  Last Sunday morning, ignoring Mr. Man's exaggerated eye rolls and loud 'hmmmmphs' I decided to try my hands at making it.  Just as I was about to start I remembered my sisters recipe called for parmesan cheese and I didn't have any, but luckily for me I had some cheddar cheese so I decided to use that instead.  Mr. Man took one bite of his plate and I can never forget the way his eyes lit up (he's a foodie and can be quite opinionated when it comes to rating food he has never tried) and he gave it a good 10/10! Success!

Ingredients

2 teaspoon olive oil

1 large onion (chopped)

2 crushed garlic cloves

600g beef mince

1/2 cup red wine

500g bottle of tomato pasta sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

250g packet of dried lasagne pasta sheets

2 cups of Bechamel sauce or white sauce (learn to make yours HERE)

2 cups of grated Cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon Oregano (optional) 

Salt

Pepper

METHOD

1.  Heat oil in a frying or saucepan over medium heat and add chopped onions and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add you minced meat and with a wooden spoon crush the lumped up meat against the sides or bottom of your cooking vessel to loosen them. Cook for 10 minutes while stirring every 3 minutes or so.

 2.  Add sauce, sugar and wine and season with pepper and salt (add oregano spice or any spice of your choice at this point).

3.  With the heat on low, allow to simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened

grease or oil spray tin

Lasagne sheets

4.  Preheat oven to 180°C/160°F. Lightly grease a square baking dish.  Spoon some of the mince mixture over the base of dish and arrange the lasange sheets over it, you can carefully break the sheets so it would fit the baking pan. 

5.  Do another layer by adding the minced mixture on the lasagne sheet, use a spoon to level it and drizzle some of the Bechamel/white sauce (learn to make yours HERE) sprinkle some cheddar cheese and layer with lasagne sheets as you did before.  Do like 4 layers in total.

6.  For the topmost layer don't cover with lasagna sheet, just layer with white cream, cheese and a whatever is left of the mince mixture (if nothing is left don't worry). 

7.  Cover baking foil loosely with foil and pop in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until pasta is tender and cheese has melted

         8.  Allow stand for 10 minutes before digging in!

cheesy goodness

Lasagne with red wine (no point saving what's left from your cooking for later)

Going.....

Going......

All gone!

CONFESSION:

After pouring in the 1/2 cup of wine, I took the time to pour myself a liberal amount of red wine, matter of I filled the glass to the brim and got quite boozy.  Who said you have to wait till the end of your cooking to enjoy the rewards?  **Hic***

Thanks for the follows, comments and suggestions.  I've learnt a lot over the past month from you my constant readers and people that have taken the time to teach me a thing or two about my recipes. I want to specially thank all my BBM and Facebook friends for helping me advertise this blog.  

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BEX