Winter: short days, cold weather and a good amount greyness if you live in Klagenfurt. But this I can actually live with.
The lack of inspiring seasonal vegetables just kills me instead. And the fact that when I go to the markets to get local and seasonal produce all I find is cabbage does not help. And when I say cabbage I mean all sorts of cabbage.
Chinese cabbage, red cabbage, white cabbage, Sauerkraut, and why not broccoli and cauliflower are also in the cabbage family. And to add some variety lots of potatoes and carrots. I have this idea that Cabbage Family (from now referred to as CF) means bland hospital food, even though I don’t remember getting anything that even resembles a member of the CF during my stays at the hospital. But let’s move on.
My determination to win the “basta with pasta with tomato sauce” fight is still high and that’s why I had to make sure that even my Sunday lasagna dish would not be with tomato sauce. After all lasagna is just glorified pasta with pimped tomato sauce, right? With this dish I killed two birds with one stone indeed: I won the pasta battle AND successfully carried on the anti bland CF dish campaign. It’s for sure, I will never look at the CF in the same way again!
Ingredients for the sauce
200 gr broccoli, blanched
200 gr cauliflower, blanched
100 gr fennel, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 potato, chopped
1 liter vegetable stock, made with veggie scraps
90 gr cream
salt to taste
nutmeg to taste
olive oil
Cook the onions and garlic in a pan with some olive oil over medium/high heat until golden brown. Add the chopped fennel and cook until soft. Add the blanched broccoli and cauliflower and cook until they start showing some colour. Add 2/3 of the vegetable stock and the chopped potato, cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes or until all the veggies are soft. Remove from heat and blend everything until smooth. Put the pan back on the stove and add the cream. Cook until the sauce is as thick as pancake mixture. Add salt and nutmeg to taste.
Lasagna sheets
50 gr wholegrain semolina
75 gr wholegrain flour
75 gr white flour
water (about 160 ml)
Mix the three flours with enough water to get a nice and elastic consistency but make sure it stays as dry as possible. Like this extra flour is not really necessary when rolling.
Put the dough in the fridge to rest until you are ready to roll it. Roll the dough with a pasta machine to the desired thickness. I like my pasta thin 🙂
Alternate a layer of sauce and one of pasta sheets in a baking tray until you run out of ingredients. Add some of the remaining stock in between to make sure the pasta has enough liquid to absorb. Add some grated cheese on top.
Bake at 200 degrees C for about 20-30 minutes or until the pasta is cooked and the cheese golden brown.
