Monday evening! I really don't like Mondays - work is alway busy, traffic is always bad and the last thing I want to do when I come home is to start chopping a butternut and waiting for over an hour for dinner to be ready.
My top tip this week is to cook in bulk on the weekend if at all possible. We had a small production line in the kitchen yesterday, music on, knives at the ready! In addition to making sweetcorn chowder and butterbean minestrone for lunches we also made tonight's dinner.
It made sense, the oven was already on because we were slow roasting belly pork (Matt's best yet I have to admit) and we were in 'cooking mode'. Chopping an extra butternut wasn't too much hassle and we could roast it in the bottom of the oven at the same time as the pork - therefore using the oven more economically! When the butternut was roasting, I wilted the spinach and made the roux for the white sauce and had everything layered up and ready for the fridge before the belly pork was done! Dinner from start to finish tonight consisted of whacking the prepared lasagne in the over (bit like a ready meal), opening a bag of salad and hey presto.... a delicous dinner in 30 minutes. Eat your heart our Jamie!
Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagne
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Whole recipe 27 points
Serves 3 generous portions
My tip: I added a squirt of garlic puree into the cheese sauce - really made a difference.
1 butternut squash, chopped and seeded
1 tbsp oil
1 onion
25g low fat butter
25g plain flour
600ml skimmed milk
200g extra light philly
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (I omitted)
225g bag spinach
6 lasagne sheets
50g grated parmesan
salt and pepper
1. preheat the oven to 180c. Put the squash into a roasting tin with the oil and onion. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes tossing halfway through.
2. to make the sauce, melt the butter in a pan, then stir in the flour and cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring for 5 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Mix in the philly and stir thoroughly and season.
3. heat 1 tbsp of water in a pan and add the spinach, cover and cook until wilted. Season generously.
4. Spoon the squash mixture into an ovenproof dish. Layer the spinach on top, then 3 lasagne sheets, then cover with a third of the sauce, then layre butternut, spinach, sauce and 3 more lasagne sheets. Top with the remaining spinach and sauce and then sprinkle with the parmesan.
5. Allow to cool and then put in the fridge ready to be oven baked the following day or Cook for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and the pasta is cooked. (can then be frozen also)
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