There are several ways we use up vegetables that are about to go bad, soups, frittatas quiches and lasagna!

A few Sundays ago, I decided to make lasagna for two simple reasons I had some dry lasagna pasta sheets that needed to be used and lasagna is the perfect Sunday lunch meal!

My fridge clean included some curly kale, button mushroom and goat cheese that were in need to be cooked. I added some dry porcini mushrooms and dairy free bechamel and made a lasagna in just over one hour.

It turned out to be the perfect combo for our Sunday lunch!

I used lasagna sheets that do not require any precooking, you can put them dry in your dish and will cook in the oven.

This lasagna is vegetarian, cow milk free and serves 4 people.

Ingredients

• 25g Dry porcini mushrooms
• 2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Garlic clove
• 200g Button mushrooms – clean and sliced
• 250g Curly kale – washed and cut in small pieces
• 200ml Bechamel sauce
• 500g Lasagna Sheet – I used one box of DeCecco Lasagna
• 100g Soft goat cheese
• Plenty of Parmigiano cheese
• Salt and Pepper to taste

For the bechamel

• 50g Butter – I used vegetable butter
• 50g Flour
• 500 ml – Almond milk – or a milk alternative of your preference
• 1 Pinch of salt
• 1/8 tsp Nutmeg powder – I used freshly grated nutmeg

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 180C Fan.

2. Soak the dry porcini mushroom in a bowl with 2 cups of boiling water, or enough water to cover them. Leave them to soak until soft or you have to use them.

3. Put the extra virgin olive oil and the garlic in a frying pan and cook until the garlic turns gold. Add the button mushrooms, season with salt and pepper to taste and let them cook until soft. Remove the porcini mushrooms from water, add them to the button mushrooms and cook them for one minute. When cooked remove garlic and set the mushrooms aside to be used later.

Do not throw the porcini mushroom water as you will need it later in the recipe.

4. Fill a medium size pot with water and bring it to boil. Add the curly kale and let it cook until the stems are tender. Remove the kale with a tong and place them in blender. Add salt, a couple of spoons of the porcini water and the kale cooking water and blend to make a smooth sauce.

5. While the kale cooks, you can make the bechamel. In a small pot melt the butter on a medium heat, add the flour and mix to create a roux. Stir in the almond milk slowly stirring continuously with a whisk until you have a smooth mix. Add the nutmeg and a pinch of salt and let it cook for a couple of minutes on a low flame until it thickens a little.

Make sure the bechamel is a not too dense as the lasagna sheet will soak any liquid while cooking. If it looks to thick, just add more milk to make it more liquid.

6. Now that all the ingredients are ready you can start layering the lasagna. Spread a generous spoon of bechamel on the base of the baking tray and cover with 3 lasagna sheets. Then evenly cover with the kale sauce, a couple of spoons of mushrooms, one spoon of soft goat cheese, a couple of spoons of bechamel, a teaspoon of the porcini mushroom water and grate some parmigiano cheese all over. Covered with three sheets of lasagna and add the kale sauce, mushrooms, goat cheese, bechamel, porcini mushroom water and parmigiano as for the first layer.

Repeat the steps until you use all the lasagna sheets. I made four layers plus the top one that I covered the layer with some mushrooms, bechamel and plenty of parmigiano cheese.

5. Gently poured any remaining porcini mushroom water to the sides of the lasagna so that it could be used to cook the pasta sheets.

6. Bake it for about 20 minutes or until it is cooked and looks nice and brown on the top.

Once cooked, take it out of the oven and leave it set for five minutes before serving it.

Notes

I always try not to layer too many pasta sheets on top of each other as it makes it hard to cook with the risk of the lasagna not being cooked throughout.

Always pour the porcini water through a strainer, this is to avoid that any residue from the mushrooms, such as soil, gets into your food.

You can store any leftover bechamel sauce covered in the fridge for 2-3 days, you will need to mix it with a little bit of milk to make it liquid again. If you want to you can also freeze it up to one month, although I have never tried it.

You can store any leftover lasagna in the fridge for a couple of days and you can freeze it up to one month.

This lasagna is really delicious and the mushrooms mix and kale give it a nice strong flavour, it is definitely one that I will make again!

If you want to make this recipe and share it on your social media please tag me using @prepandproperrecipes and using the tag #prepandproperrecipes and #nofoodinthebin