Roast pumpkin, spinach and fetta lasagna

Yesterday I decided I needed to use up the big lump of pumpkin and two bunches of spinach which had been sitting in my fridge. This is what I came up with:

Ingredients

• 250g pack instant lasagna or enough for 5 layers in the dish you will be using
• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese to top
  

For the pumpkin layer

• olive oil
  
• 1.2kg pumpkin, skinned and cubed
  
• 5 cloves garlic, in skins [I love garlic. A lot. You may want to just put in one or two.]
• salt, pepper

For the spinach layer

• 30g butter
• 2 bunches big leafy (Savoy) spinach, stems removed (~550g stemless green leaves)
• 120g feta, crumbled
• 3 tbsp pine nuts, dry toasted
• nutmeg to taste

White sauce

• 90g butter
• ¼ cup flour
• 500mL milk
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 tsp grated Parmesan cheese
• nutmeg, salt, pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and add a few tbsp of olive oil to a shallow baking dish
   
2. Peel and cube the pumpkin into 1.5"ish cubes. Put them into the dish with the the garlic and toss in oil. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Place baking dish in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, until pumpkin is cooked through. Leave the oven on. When it is done, slip the garlic out of its papery shell and mash the pumpkin and garlic together (not to a paste, you want a little lumpy consistency). Pour off any excess liquid, or add a little oil if it is too dry.
   
4. While the pumpkin is roasting, wash the stemmed spinach leaves in three changes of water. Shake (or spin) dry.
5. Melt the butter in a large frying or saucepan. Add a sprinkle of nutmeg and the spinach (can be done in two batches depending on the size of your pan). Cook for a few minutes, turning a few times so that it steams evenly.
6. When the spinach is wilted and has lost most of its water, drain the spinach. Transfer it to a clean bowl, handful by handful, giving each one a good squeeze over the sink to get out as much juice as possible.
7. Toast the pine nuts on a dry frying pan if you haven't already. Add them, along with the crumbled fetta cheese, to the spinach.
8. Time to make the white sauce! Melt the butter over med-high heat. Add the flour and stir quickly for about a minute. Slowly add the milk, beating well after each addition so that it doesn't go lumpy. Pop in a bay leaf and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Keep stirring as the mixture boils and thickens. Turn the heat down to low and cook for a further five minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and season with salt and pepper.
9. Pour some hot water into a large bowl. You will be using this to soften the lasagna sheets. Spread the bottom of your lasagna baking dish with some white sauce. Dip the first layer of lasagna sheets in the hot water, then lay them on top of the white sauce. Spread half of the pumpkin mixture on top of this. Repeat the pasta layer, and then add half the spinach mixture. Next comes another pasta layer, then the rest of the pumpkin, then more lasagna, the rest of the spinach, and a final layer of lasagna. Pour the rest of the white sauce on top. Make sure the top pasta layer is completely covered with it, and let it run down the sides if there is any excess. Sprinkle top with grated Parmesan cheese.
10. Pop in the oven (same temperature) for around 50 minutes. Test if it's done by sliding a fork or knife into the lasagna. There should be little resistance. The top should be crispy and brown. Yum.
11. Admire your masterpiece. Serve with a simple fresh salad.

Serves 3-6. Tastes delightful reheated in the microwave. Just what I needed tonight, after realising I managed to leave my wallet on the bus. Fingers crossed it gets turned in!

Update: Somebody handed my wallet in, so I got it back! Hooray!

Incoming: vegan recipes

I received a handful of swaps recently, including this one. I loved the envelope - a splash of colour amongst a bunch of white ones.

When I opened it, and saw the colour of the recipe cards, I knew what was inside. I have been following Communikate's blog: founders objects. She is documenting a month's worth of swapping activities there, and had featured these cards.

They're so cute & the recipes look so yummy that I've scanned them in for your perusal. They are

1. The best chocolate cupcake recipe yet
2. African groundnut stew
   
3. Seitan / wheat meat
   

Click-through to read :)

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• Related post: Recipe swaps: vegan & scavenger

Recipe swaps: vegan & scavenger

Two recent swaps I sent off were mmmmm Favorite Recipes - Vegan and Recipe scavenger hunt on swap-bot. As a vegan-leaning vegetarian, I was all too happy to share some of my tried & true vegan recipes, and to receive some other people's in return. The scavenger hunt was also fun, and required each participant to choose recipes from ten of the following fifteen categories:

1. uses leftovers
2. contains no meat
3. is for a soup
4. is for a dessert
5. contains corn
6. was found in a magazine
7. you've never tried
8. is your favorite recipe
9. can be made in a crock pot or slow cooker
10. is for an appetizer
11. contains cheese
12. is for bread or muffins
13. contains fruit
14. is for a dip
15. is really bad for you-but tastes soooo good

I sent only veggie recipes (and my swap partner for the scavenger hunt is also kindly sending me only veggie ones), including the following yummy soup from The Canberra Cook, which is great for winter:

Roast Tomato and Red Lentil Soup

Ingredients

• 1kg tomatoes.
• 1 litre good vegetable stock
• 180g red lentils
• 1 medium onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (or just a teaspoon works)
• 2 tsp oregano
• salt, pepper

Recipe

1. Halve the tomatoes, arrange in a single layer on a deep sided baking dish, roast in a moderate (160C) oven for 40 minutes. They should be well done, but not dried.
2. Gently fry the onion & garlic in the oil until onion is golden. Add the lentils (washed & picked over as needed), stock, tomatoes and oregano. Also add any juices from the bottom of the tomato baking dish. You can slip the skins off the tomatoes at this point if you so desire.
3. Simmer until lentils are done - these are the type that go to mush, not the whole ones. Run through a blender to get a smoothish texture. Thin down with water or more veggie stock to your desired consistency, and add salt and pepper to taste.

The format was sender's choice, and my partners didn't specify whether they wanted cards or sheets or anything, so I ended up printing on to letter-sized paper (by that I mean I printed on A4 and tried to trim it down to letter dimensions...! See this wiki article for more on North American vs the International standard!)

For one thing, I don't know what a standard recipe card size is, and also my recipes were quite long, and there were many of them. Still, I got out some coloured paper and decorated them best I could. Aside from the tomatoes, I also made some more vegetables.... including eggplant, carrot, lemon, peas and spinach amongst others!


It was fun! So much fun, in fact, that I got carried away and decided to make a tomato magnet too... here it is!


It is slightly raised & filled with pillow material. It was the first time I had used blanket stitch, and it works well to seal the edges of flat felt objects! :) The magnetic strip was adhesive but I found that I also had to stitch it on to really stick (luckily it is thin, and the needle pierces it easily).

In the meantime, I need to improve my photography & digital editing skills somewhat!

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• Related post: Incoming: vegan recipes