Dinner by The Girl

The Girl has been asking for a long time to do a project her older brother did when he was HE. She wants to plan a weeks meals, shop for them and cook them. As preparation for this, she's decided to make one meal a week until she gets a bit more used to cooking :) Today was her first attempt :)

Lasagne - she made the meat sauce in the slow cooker this morning. I got her to make twice as much as necessary so that we can freeze some for another day. The bechamel sauce she made later, while Boykin was at Football training. She was very pleased because it didn't go lumpy at all :) Both me and the Girl had seconds AND there's leftovers for tomorrow. Yummy!

This was followed by banana ice-cream. A really simple recipe from Annabel's Kitchen: My First Cookbook which really just consists of freezing bananas and then whizzing them up. A completely dairy and sugar free recipe :) Boykin wasn't impressed, he said it tasted like banana porridge - which he doesn't like. We enjoyed it though, especially with a drop of chocolate sauce and a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands.....oh, bang goes the sugar-free pudding then ;)

It's great she's enthusiastic about cooking....I just wish she was equally as keen to wash up. Ho-hum!

The Girl's Lasagne Recipe
Meat sauce
1lb minced beef
1 onion whizzed up
1 stick celery finely chopped
1 carrot finely chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp oregano
a little water (about half the empty tomato tin)
a little olive oil for frying
fresh ground black pepper

1. Heat the oil and gently fry onion, celery, carrot and garlic until onion is soft. Put in slow cooker.
2. Brown mince in same pan. Put in slow cooker.
3. Put tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and a little water in pan. Sprinkle with pepper. Bring to boil. Pour over other ingredients in slow cooker and stir.
4. Cook on medium for about 5 hours.
5. Preheat oven to gas mark 6.

Bechamel sauce
1pt milk
2oz butter
2oz plain flour
nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper

Parmesan Cheese grated

1. Melt butter in a saucepan.
2. Add plain flour.
3. Add milk a bit at a time, stirring well to avoid lumps.
4. When the sauce has thickened, add nutmeg and black pepper.

Put a layer of meat sauce in a lasgne dish. Cover with lasagne sheets. Add a layer of bechamel sauce - about a third of what's in saucepan. Add another layer of meat sauce - use it all up. Then another layer of lasagne sheets. Then add the rest of the bechamel sauce and sprinkle generously with grated parmesan cheese.

Bake at Gas Mark 6 for 30 minutes until golden brown.

We ate it with a green leaf salad :)