Beef Lasagne

Lasagna is one of the calorific foods there is. All the beef, the creamy white sauce, the cheese... Unfortunately, the things that make it so bad is what makes it taste so good! Lasagna is a very rich food, it has to be. Otherwise, it can't be considered lasagna ;) Here's how to make your own:

What you need:
Lasagna sheets
Cheese: I use Cheddar, Mozzarella and Parmesan
Salt and pepper, for seasoning

Meat Sauce:
Minced beef
Pasta sauce
Tomato sauce
Onions, sliced thinly
Garlic, chopped into small pieces

White sauce:
Butter
Flour
Milk

What you do:

1. To make the meat sauce, saute the onions and garlic until softened. Add the minced beef and cook until browned. Add the pasta and tomato sauce, season well with salt and pepper. Simmer until the beef is cooked.
2. To make the white sauce, melt the butter (or margarine) over a low heat. Add the flour and stir to form a smooth paste (The butter is in a larger proportion compared to the flour). Add the milk gradually, stirring constantly. Stir over medium heat until the sauce is nice and thick. Season with salt and pepper (and even cheese, if you want)
3. To assemble the lasagna, place a layer of the meat sauce at the bottom of a large oven-proof dish. Place sheets of lasagna over it and top with white sauce. Sprinkle with some cheese if you want, over the white sauce. Place more sheets of lasagna over this, and spread another layer of the meat sauce.
4. Repeat step 3, until the dish is full. End with at least 2 layers of white sauce, if possible. Sprinkle lots and lots of cheese over the top of the lasagna.
5. Bake at 180 C for about half an hour, until the cheese is nice and bubbly and golden. Leave to stand for 5 minutes before enjoying!

And there you have it! Lasagna looks impressive, yet is quite simple to make. The nice thing about it is that you can modify it to suit your taste. Feel free to add veggies (such as carrots or celery) into the meat sauce. You can even season both sauces with various herbs, perhaps oregano and basil for the meat sauce, and parsley for the white sauce? Up to you :D Feel free to modify the flavourings of the meat sauce as well. Some people are not fond of the tomato taste :P Oh, and don't be tempted to buy the red and white sauces for lasagna of various brands, sold in supermarkets. I tried this once, made my lasagna taste like rubber, which was moderately disgusting. The white sauce, especially, was not so yummy...

This was my first time making lasagna myself (well, with a tiny bit of help from Hanisah, the cheese sprinkler :P) since I usually have Ibu or Ka Anum to help - or rather I just help them. But for a first time effort, it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, it was quite delicious, if I do say so myself, ehehe.

Lasagna has always been popular in my house (one of our specialty dishes, I guess ;)) Our neighbour/cousins also happened to be over when I served this, so they had a taste as well. People said it was "different" from our usual lasagna, but was still very yummy. Three of them managed to finish 3/4 of one dish, and another three managed to finish almost all of the other dish. And these are fairly large dishes, mind you. The only complaint I got was because I added sausages into the meat sauce, and apparently, this doesn't go very well with the whole thing. Oh well...live and learn :D