Belinda's Blog

Belinda, mother of three, lives in Fulham, London and loves to entertain. Tune in for her easy to cook, no nonsense recipes. Starters, mains, puddings and nibbles - she's here with suggestions for them all.

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Lasagne al Forno

Published on Tuesday 8th April 2008

Serves 6
Prep Time – approx 25 minutes
Cooking Time – 20-30 minutes

This is an absolutely delicious version. Much tastier and more sophisticated than the bog standard recipe. Definitely different enough to serve at a dinner party. It can be prepared the day before and refrigerated or, ahead of time as it freezes beautifully.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets quick cook lasagne
• 50g strong grated cheddar For the Ragu and Spinach Sauce:
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 450g best quality sausagemeat
• 1 red chilli finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 150g mushrooms sliced
• 200ml creme fraiche
• 1 large bag of baby leaf spinach
• Freshly ground salt and black pepper

For the Tomato and Thyme Sauce:

• 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
• 2 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste
• 1 tsp demerara sugar
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme chopped

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and brown the sausagemeat making sure you break it up as it cooks. Once it has cooked through, add the chilli, garlic and mushrooms and fry for a few minutes. Then add the creme fraiche and spinach. Season well and cook for a couple of minutes. Set this aside.

For the tomato and thyme sauce, mix all the listed ingredients together in a jug and season.

Put one third of the ragu and spinach sauce into the bottom of an appropriately sized ovenproof dish. Top this with one third of the tomato and thyme sauce and then two of the lasagne sheets. Repeat this twice more. Sprinkle the top with the grated cheese and bake in a reasonably hot oven for 20-30 minutes.

Serve with a crispy green lemony dressed salad and some olive ciabatta on the side.

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