lentil lasagne

i'm not apologising for my hippieness:
i. love. red. lentils.
when they're cooked just right, they have a wonderful meaty texture at a tenth of the price of meat.
about ten years ago, during one of those the-cupboard-is-bare moments, around the time i first discovered sophie gray, i made the very-hippie-sounding *lentil lasagne*. it turned out to be a hit with the fusspots that live around here les enfants, and so it's become a family staple. sometimes i put mince with the lentils, but today instead of reaching for the meat i negotiated The Jungle Veggie Garden instead:
lookit that: millions of weeds basil leaves, parsley, silverbeet leaves, and beautiful little yellow courgettes/zucchini
which i chopped and grated to form layers of delish veggieness.
S10 even helped me roll out some handmade fresh pasta. it's way more effort, but i think that a good lasagne really needs fresh pasta rather than dried. and it's healthier too.

these days i make about three times the original quantity of ten years ago!
i'm not much of a recipe-follower, so am writing this down for future lentil-days, cos it worked lol. i know you The Young Ones groupies out there are now having flashbacks of Neil droning, "Gu-u-u-u-ys, dinner's on the flo-o-o-o-or..." after one of his culinary adventures with lentils repeatedly exploding all over the kitchen...

*just breathe*

katie's sexy lentil lasagne
cook:
3 cups red lentils, bring to the boil, simmer gently ten mins, drain.

in a separate pan:
2 chopped onions (sprinkle of salt to sweat), sautéed in a generous swish of olive oil until becoming clear
add:
3 tins chopped tomatoes
gigantic squirt tomato paste
freshly ground black pepper
huge handfuls of basil and parsley from The Jungle Veggie Garden
chopped silverbeet from same place
3 grated carrots
add lentils, more tomato paste, few italian dried herbs
simmer ever-so-gently for fifteen mins.

make fresh pasta:
2 free range eggs (yes i'm a convert to happy chickens)
1 1/2 c flour plus extra flour to sprinkle as rolling pasta dough

make sauce:
100g butter
flour, milk.

layer:
into HUGE ROASTING PAN spread red sauce, pasta, white sauce, extra silverbeet and grated yellow courgette (to sneak into les enfants),
grated GOLD cheese (why are dairy products so suddenly *crazily* expensive here in a dairy exporting nation?? i know *why* but ten dollars a kilo for cheese *on special* is completely ridiculous. so is three dollars for a pound of butter!!! i will not even mention the word "petrol". i think we'll be getting a horse and cart instead of replacing The Sardine Tin.)

repeat with the rest of the ingredients, finishing with grated cheese and another sprinkle of cracked pepper.

bake:
180 degrees celsius for an hour/hour and a half while bribing Hubby to clean up the bombsite kitchen.
let lasagne set for a few hours (this recipe is kinda wet), reheat gently at dinner time.
watch everyone consume it in the blink of an eye with a fresh green salad which even has *cucumbers* out of The Jungle Veggie Garden in it!!!