Easy lasagne

There's not much in life that I love more than a good lasagne. That said, I don't much care for the laborious process traditionally involved with creating this Italian comfort food. I was therefore thrilled when my good Swiwi (that's half Swedish, half Kiwi) friend, Jo (who you can find blogging here) provided me with this easy recipe. She was initially dismayed that I tweaked it to include meat (my excuse: I live with a carnivorous male!), but I think she'll forgive me. I've made this lasagne a number of times since the recipe was exchanged and cannot rate it more highly for simplicity and taste. 

Easy lasagne

Serves 6-8

A splash of olive oil

1 onion
500g beef mince
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 heaped teaspoon of hot paprika (optional)
2-3 carrots
2 zucchinis
1 can crushed/chopped tomatoes
200ml crème fraîche
250g frozen spinach - defrosted
50g feta (not pictured below)
1 pkt lasagne sheets

2 generous handfuls of grated cheese
3 tbls milk

About two hours prior to cooking, remove spinach from freezer and set aside to defrost.

Pre-heat oven to 210°C. 

Fry up onion and garlic in a couple of splashes of olive oil. 

Add and brown beef mince, as well as the *secret* ingredient for those who like their lasagne with a little kick - paprika. 

At this stage, I should probably shout out to Nagambie Gold olive oil and Oasis Bakery (provider of this paprika) - both of which are excellent local Victorian companies, whose products I use on a near daily basis. 


I digress! Next add the chopped carrots and zucchini. Your pot should now look something like this:

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and allow to bubble away on the stove top for around 10 minutes, at which time the carrots should be beginning to soften, but shouldn't be mushy (after all, it's going to be cooked in the oven later on). 
Now is a good time to squeeze the excess liquid from the defrosted spinach.
Add crème fraîche, stir through and remove pot from heat. 

The crème fraîche is truly the star of this lasagne - it negates the need for making a béchamel sauce and provides a beautifully intensive creaminess to the dish. 

Now it's time to layer it up!

Repeat until all meat sauce is used (I make three layers of meat with these quantities).

It's now time for the beast to be baked (at around 210°C for 30 minutes). If your oven is anything like mine (i.e. pathetic!) you'll need to stick the lasagne under the griller for a couple of minutes to nicely crisp and brown the top. 

Et voilà! My easy lasagne is done!

Serve piping hot (check out that steam!)...

...and enjoy the oozy creamy goodness of lasagne in less than an hour - stellar!