cooking, cooking with kids

Tasty and quick Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne

This was another quick ‘rustle’ tonight by the 9 and 11yo boys, as we had a big bag of spinach and no coriander in the house to make a spinach dahl!… The fresh pasta sheets were in the freezer, so we defrosted those and got busy with the Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Spinach and Mushroom LasagneIngredients for 4 people:

1 tbsp olive oil
300g bag spinach
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g pack mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp thyme leaves, chopped
Cheese sauce (see below)
400g tin of puy lentils
1 tsp bouillon stock
300g fresh pasta sheets

For the Cheese Sauce

Big knob of butter
Flour
Milk
Water
Grated Cheese to taste

Instructions:

1) Heat the oil. Crush the garlic, and gently fry in a large frying pan for one minute in the oil.

2) Add the sliced mushrooms and the chopped thyme and stir

3) Meanwhile start the cheese sauce, by melting a bit knob of butter in another pan, and adding a tablespoon of flour, to make a roux – add milk, and keep stirring, the secret is to use a hand whisk which gets the lumps out, add water if it starts to thicken.

4) Add the spinach a handful at a time to the mushrooms and garlic in the frying pan. Sprinkle and stir in a tsp of bouillon low salt stock.

5) Add the grated cheese to the white sauce and keep stirring.

6) Add the remaining spinach and a tin of drained and rinsed puy lentils and stir.

7) Start to layer up the pie dish (we use a glass dish, as the kids like to see the layers) – starting with the spinach and lentils mix, then add two sheets of lasagne side by side to cover, and a dollop of the cheese sauce, and so on until you have used up the lasage, finish by pouring the remaining cheese sauce over the Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne dish.

8) Grate over another handful of cheese and crumble on some breadcrumbs. And place in the hot oven for 35 minutes. I find that covering the dish with tin foil after twenty minutes stops the cheesy breadcrumb crust from over cooking.

Another favourite for 11yo is his Salmon with mushrooms and pak choi, click here to read more.

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!