Vegetable lasagna with pumpkin bechamel

[lilacsigil]

Delicious vegetables! Fabulous béchamel! Tasty pasta!

Yesterday, st_aurafina and I made vegetable lasagna again, because it's just too delicious not to have around. It also freezes perfectly - before or after cooking - so we can eat the rest next week. It includes eggplant, zucchini, roasted tomatoes, carrot and parsnip, red onions, garlic and grilled capsicum. The lasagna took about 8 hours to make, but those 8 hours included much reading of LJ and playing Sims while vegetables grilled and roasted - it's a good project for a day off.



Here's a slice:




Vegetarian lasagna with pumpkin béchamel sauce

Ingredients:
Quarter of a pumpkin
Two red onions
Four or more cloves of garlic (mine were especially strong)
1 parsnip
1 carrot
2 red and 1 green capsicum
3 zucchini
3 medium eggplants
2 punnets cherry or mini roma tomatoes
1 bunch fresh basil
150g butter
1 cup plain flour
1.5 litres full cream milk
500g grated mozzarella
olive oil
salt
pepper


1. Place in an oven-proof dish a quarter of a pumpkin, two onions (quartered), four cloves of garlic (chopped roughly), a parsnip and a carrot (both in pieces). Salt and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Roast for approximately 90 minutes.

2. Chop 300g of cherry or baby roma tomatoes in half. Place on tray, cut side up, sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and roast for approximately 1 hour.

3. Remove seeds and slice 2 red and 1 green capsicums into flat pieces (about 3 per capsicum). Grill without oil, skin side up, until skin is black. Place all pieces into a plastic bag with some basil leaves and tie shut. Leave to cool for about an hour – the steam will loosen the skins. When capsicum is cool, peel off the skins and slice into strips.

4. Cut 3 zucchini and 3 eggplants into 1cm thick slices. Spray lightly with olive oil and grill on both sides, until cooked. Put on a plate with some basil leaves.

5. Remove tomatoes from oven and place in bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add basil leaves.

6. Remove pumpkin and other vegetables from oven. Mash pumpkin with basil. Slice other vegetables thinly and place on plate.

7. Make béchamel sauce (150g butter, 1 cup flour, 1.5 litres milk) and, when cooked, stir in all the pumpkin. I actually used 2 litres of milk, but made too much sauce. There's plenty of "how to make béchamel" sites online for tips.

8. I prefer to use fresh lasagna and cut it into smaller pieces to avoid it sliding out of the dish in one giant piece and burning my chin, but you can use whatever kind of lasagna you like.

9. In rectangular oven-proof dish, layer: béchamel, lasagna, vegetables, grated mozzarella cheese, béchamel. Finish with lasagna, then top with a thin layer of béchamel and cheese.

10. Bake in moderate oven for about 2 hours, or until top is browned. Serves six.