No Pasta Lasagne - revisited

This dish is what it says on the tin – a lasagne but with no pasta!  Instead of the sheets of pasta I used slices of courgette (zucchini).  This was a spur of the moment invention when I realised that I had no lasagne sheets in the pantry (having forgotten I had thrown them out thinking they had been there too long).

It actually worked out quite well.  I may do it again but would reduce the liquid content a bit since while pasta soaks up liquid, zucchini actually does the opposite.

For the cheese sauce I used a powdered packet sauce to which I added milk, sour cream, grated cheese and nutmeg – I just cooked it lightly until it combined into a sauce when stirred with a wooden spoon.

I sliced enough courgettes to make 2 layers in the lasagne pan – and squeezed a bit of lemon juice over them to stop them browning.  I tried to make the strips about twice the thickness that  lasagne is.  As I was cutting them by hand the thicknesses varied a bit but that didn't seem to cause a problem.

I then diced up the end bits of the courgette to go into the meat sauce.  I fried off ½ a finely diced carrot, 1/3 of a finely diced red onion, a chopped red bell pepper (capsicum), some cloves to garlic, a touch of chilli (obviously optional), some leftover cooked corn kernels and the diced bits of zucchini.  I put it into a bowl while I browned the beef mince (ground beef) in batches.  It is a bit of a pain doing it in batches but it does give you a better result.

Once all the meat was browned I added back the vegetables, a can of chopped tomatoes (would halve this next time), some tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, a touch of dried rosemary and a splosh of wine.

I simmered the meat sauce for about half an hour.

Then you just need to assemble the 'lasagne'.  About 1/3 of the meat sauce goes in first, then a layer of zucchini strips then a layer of cheese sauce.  Then repeat once more.  I finished the top with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs (which you would obviously omit if you were gluten free) and some knobs of butter. 

I think all lasagnes are better if you put them in the fridge for an hour or two before baking them.  But that's just my opinion.