Kitchen Garden Lasagne

By Wendy Barrie

With lovely seasonal vegetables, homegrown or locally sourced, even my carnivore husband enjoys this lasagne. Vegetables will vary with availability - today’s version has parsnips, leek, carrots and peas. For this recipe we grew Eichdorfer Gelb, a yellow beet from 1809, instead of using pasta sheets – it’s really delicious.

Ingredients:

2 large carrots & parsnips 2 leeks – ours aren’t very large yet A small handful of chanterelles – fresh or dried 1 head of broccoli, broken into florets A cup of peas Blackthorn sea salt & milled black pepper A generous scrunch of dried/fresh marjoram leaves – still widely available just now 1 carton chopped tomatoes/pulp 2tsps pesto Drizzle of Supernature rapeseed oil Lasagne sheets or Eichdorfer Gelb beet, finely sliced on a mandolin White sauce: 50g butter, 50g flour, 600mls milk, 1tsp of Galloway Lodge wholegrain mustard 150g mature farmhouse cheese, grated – this one is Carrick from the Ethical Dairy

Method:

• Rinse and peel roots. Cut in wedges. • Drizzle a little oil in a wok or large frying pan and sauté roots to caramelise edges. • Add leeks and mushrooms and toss in pan with seasoning. • Add tomatoes, rinsing out the carton to add further tomato and a little extra liquid. • Lid on and simmer until the sauce thickens a little. Add raw broccoli florets and peas. Set aside. • Meanwhile make sauce by melting butter in a saucepan. Season with salt and pepper, add flour and bind together to make a roux. Gradually add milk, whisking with a balloon whisk to ensure a smooth incorporation as the sauce comes up to the boil. Once all the milk is added, add mustard and simmer for a couple of minutes to cook the flour and thicken the sauce. It should coat the back of your wooden spoon. • Finally finely slice your beet or lay out sheets of dry lasagne. • With all components ready, layer the tomato/veg mix, then thin slices of raw beet - or raw lasagne sheets – white sauce and repeat, finishing with a layer of beets and white sauce. The mix should be moist to hydrate and cook the pasta or beets you are using. • Bake, covered with foil, for 45 minutes in a medium oven then remove cover. • Scatter with grated cheese, increase oven temperature to 200°C and bake, uncovered, until the cheese topping is bubbling and beginning to colour.

Serves 4 with pickles or chutney and salad. Delicious re-heated the following day.

Scottish Thistle Award Regional Ambassador (2018/19) for Central, Tayside & Fife, Wendy Barrie www.wendybarrie.co.uk is a highly respected campaigner for local sustainable food, popular cookery show presenter and food writer. Founder & Director of award-winning www.scottishfoodguide.scot & www.scottishcheesetrail.com Wendy is Leader in Scotland for Slow Food Ark of Taste & Member of Slow Food Cooks Alliance.