From Scratch, Then Sniff

Ever had lasagna? Yeah, me to. In fact, I've had all sorts of lasagna. Pre-made lasagna, microwave lasagna, frozen weightwatchers lasagna. Restaurant lasagna, pub grub lasagna, Mama's homemade lasagna. Other people's Mama's homemade lasagna. Even veggie lasagna (once). But you know what I've never had? Eoin-made lasagna (if you're not Irish you probably didn't realise that was a clever pun playing off of the fact that my name is pronounced "own" thereby essentially reading as ownmade, which I guess is the same thing as homemade except in the case of ownmade you also have to do the cooking and not just the eating. If you are Irish, I apologise for this lengthy and unnecessary parentheses. It wasn't even a good pun).



So, on one particularly empty-calender-square-of-a-day I decided to head to the old supermarché and buy up all the ingredients I thought I might need to make my very first homemade lasagna from scratch for a segment I like to call "From Scratch, Then Sniff". This is what was in my shopping trolley:

• Ground beef (value pack)
• Onions (value pack)
• Garlic (I really like value packs)
• Mushrooms (the normal kind)
• Spinach
• Tin of tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• Grated mozzarella (for better value, grate your own)
• Pasta sheets (Note to self: learn how to make pasta from scratch for authentic blog post)

I also had some thyme at home.

For the lasagna connoisseur amongst you, you might have noticed that I didn't pick up any bechamel sauce. Well, I never particularly liked that stuff in my lasagna but feel free to add it in if it makes you happy. Also, I couldn't find any.

This is what I did. Chopped up two onion and three cloves of garlic and then sweated them in a frying pan with olive oil until they gave up the location of the wooden spoon. Then, using said wooden spoon, spooned in the meat and gave the whole thing a browning. Chopped up the shrooms and tossed them in as well. Sprinkled some thyme, salt and pepper and stirred in. Then I unloaded a whole can of tomato whoop ass by adding a can of tomatoes. And two tablespoons of tomato puree, which comes in a smaller can of whoop ass.
Meanwhile, on stove number 2 I had some boiling water softening up half the pasta sheets whilst the other half watched. Later I used both the softened sheets and the hard sheets in the lasagna to see which ones worked best but they ended up having the exact same texture after baking. Although the softened sheets were easier to lay (the floozies).

In a baking tray I commenced the layering which went thusly; meat, spinach, pasta, meat, spinach, pasta, mozzarella. The spinach I used as a thin layer between the meat and pasta although in retrospect it could have done with being a bit thicker. When the final layer of grated mozzarella was sprinkled on top, I seasoned with salt and pepper and garnished with a few loose leaves of spinach. And then into the oven for around 30 minutes, then Bon Apetit.

Things I learnt:

• If you like cheese, use more cheese. You can never go wrong with more cheese. When I make my next batch I'll have an extra cheese layer squeezed in there somewhere in the middle.
• Experiment with veg. I'm not saying get rid of the meat altogether, but try different vegetables in there till you find a combination you like. Next  time, I might add in some courgettes.
• The g is silent in the word lasagna.