Squash, Roasted Garlic and Goats Cheese Lasagne

Squash, Roasted Garlic and Goats Cheese Lasagne

A wonderfully rich and tasty vegetarian lasagne with my super easy cheat’s white sauce.

Squash, Roasted Garlic and Goats Cheese Lasagne

Serves 4 – 6 depending on your portion sizes; Preparation 80 minutes (up to the point of assembling the lasagna); cooking time around 40 – 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium pumpkins or squash
• 8 – 10 cloves of garlic
• 4 shallots
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried sage (heaped!)
• 500ml of milk (skimmed is fine)
• 1 tablespoon of cornflour
• 1 goats cheese log
• One ball of mozzarella
• 2 tbsp grated parmesan
• Olive oil (or other oil) for roasting.
• Around 15 sheets of lasagne (although you may want to have a few more to hand just in case!)

Equipment:

• Chopping board and knife
• 2 large roasting dishes
• 2 saucepans
• Whisk
• Wooden spoon
• Dish to cook the lasagna in (or use one of the roasting dishes)
• Spatula to serve!

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C.  Then start by chopping each of the pumpkins or squash in half and scooping out all the seeds.  Then cut each of the halves into smaller chunks and remove the skin (I find that it’s easier to do this on smaller pieces than large ones).

Once you are just left with the flesh of the two pumpkin/squash you need to chop half the flesh into larger cubes (about 2cm cubed) and the other half into smaller cubes (about 1cm).  If you’re pushed for time it’s quicker to cut everything into larger chunks but it’s nice to have a variety of sizes if you can.

Put the large chucks in one roasting tin and the small ones in the other.  Pour a large glug of olive oil into each tray and then give it all a shake to coat the pieces.  Add the garlic cloves (whole and unpeeled) to the tray with the large lumps.  Place both trays in the oven (large lumps on the higher shelf!) and roast for around 30 minutes until tender and a bit brown in places (keep an eye on the smaller chunks in case they start to burn).

Once they’re cooked remove the trays from the oven and put to one side to cool a little (so you can get the garlic out of the skins without burning your fingers!).  Turn the oven down to about 180C (or off if you will actually bake the lasagna the next day) and finely chop the shallots and sweat them off gently in a saucepan.  Once the garlic has cooled enough that you can touch it remove it from the skin and roughly chop it before adding the pieces to the shallots.

Next add the pieces of squash/pumpkin, the dried sage and the chopped tomatoes and some salt and pepper and give everything a good stir.  Bring the mix up the boil and then gently simmer for 10 – 15 minutes.

While the tomato sauce is simmering chop both the goats cheese log and the mozzarella into pieces (again about 1cm cubed).  Next make the (cheats!) white sauce by whisking the cornflour and a good seasoning of pepper into the milk and continue whisking whilst bringing this to the boil.  Once the mixture has thickened (this will happen all of a sudden!) turn of the heat.

Now you can finally assemble the lasagne!  Start by placing a third of the tomato sauce in the base of your dish.  Add a small drizzle of the white sauce about a third of the goats cheese and a quarter of the mozzarella (you do not have to be terribly precise with this!) and then top with lasagne.

On top of the lasagne add the next bit of the sauce (about half of what’s left!), a little more white sauce and some cheese and then more lasagne.  Repeat once again with the last of the tomato sauce, goats cheese and lasagne.

Finally, pour the white sauce over the top layer of lasagne and spread it around to make sure that everything is nicely covered.  Sprinkle over the remaining mozzarella and the grated parmesan.  If your making this ahead of time then you can now put the lasagne in the fridge for about a day ready to cook later.  Otherwise pop it in the oven for around 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the pasta is cooked.  If you are cooking this straight from the fridge it will probably need about 5 minutes more.

Pumpkin

After Roasting

Chopped Roasted Garlic

Cheat’s White Sauce

Layering Up

Ready for the Oven

Served up