How to cook Lasagne, meeting my first disciple and more things I've done for the last time...

G'day,

Damn, it's hot today. Just came home after I met with Emily and my other former colleagues from my last job. In order to introduce my followers -btw a warm welcome to Emm, Josara, Julia and Cord (perhaps)- I start with a pic of me and Emily, my first follower:

Emm took over most of my former clients, so we went though the list and I pointed out the interesting ones and got an awesome cup of coffee in return...

How to cook Lasagne

Disclaimer: I am aware that there are as many Lasagne recipes as there are religions and I'm also aware that there are people out there with rather fundamentalistic views towards their recipe ("They way my Granny makes Lasagne is the ONLY way to do it...I kill you if you say otherwise!") so I would like to point out, that this is only a description of the way I make Lasagne. There might be better recipes out there but I like this one...

It's my intention for this blog is to combine entertaining and educational content. So today's lesson will be a cooking class. I used the opportunity to document yesterday evening's Lasagne step-by-step for anyone who is interested in the recipe. You'll need:

2 Onions
some Garlic
500g of minced meat (I used Kangaroo yesterday and it was extremely tasty but you can use beef or pork or for the vegetarians "Soy meat surrogate flakes")
500g tomato paste
some butter
flour
about 1l of milk (you can use soy milk, works too)
some cheese
Spices (pepper and salt of course, oregano, basil, thyme, hot capsicum and for those who like it hot: chili)
Olive oil
half a glass of red wine
and some Lasagne sheets

First chop up the onions and the garlic (don't use a garlic press, the stuff looses much of it's flavor when you press it, chop it up!)

Pour some olive oil in the pan and fry the onions at medium heat until they change colour (preferably before they change colour to dark brown or black)
Then add the garlic
After 2 minutes increase heat to maximum and add the meat (or meat surrogate), after the initial max heat turn it down to low/medium heat until the meat is nearly done
Now add the spices and half a glass of red wine
Let it cook slightly for another 5 minutes, then add the tomato paste and 1 cup of water
Mix all and let it cook on low heat and add further spices if necessary. Now for the bechamel sauce (which is called "cheese sauce" on the Lasagne sheet packages which makes no sense at all as no cheese whatoever is involved). First melt some butter (50-70g) in a pot.
When the butter is melted add some flour, mix it with an egg-beater. You might want to reduce the heat when you do this because if it's too hot the stuff gets burned very easily
While stirring the contents constantly you add the milk until the mixture thickens. Making bechamel sauce is a pain in the ass as you have to stirr the mixture constantly to avoid it getting burned. One tip: every once in a while use a scraper to scrape the bottom of the pot to prevent stuff from sticking there and getting burned.
When the sauce is ready turn off stove and get a Lasagne bowl. If you rinse it with a little olive oil before you put the Lasagne in the cleaning later wil be much easier...
Now first put a layer of bechamel sauce in the bowl and cover it with Lasagne sheets

Then put the meat (or meat surrogate) sauce on top of it
Then put some bechamel sauce on top of that
Cover that layer with Lasagne sheets
And then repeat this until you run out of a) meat (or meat surrogate) sauce b) bechamel sauce c) Lasagne sheets or d) space in the bowl. Cover the last layer of Lasagne sheets with cheese and you are nearly there
Put the thing in the oven for 45min at 180 degrees and after that time it should look something like this
Ready to serve...enjoy!


Things I've done for the last time

Today I went shopping and I realised that it's the last time that I buy shampoo and deodorant in Australia (until I come back of course). This was also the first time that the act of purchasing items of the "personal hygiene" persuasion made me a little sad. Well at least I'll have a clean scalp and I don't smell too bad while I'm sad...always look at the bright side. That was it for today...I'll be back tomorrow. Take care and cya!