I’ve been wanting to making lasagna all week however after a hard days work I could never be bothered to put so much time and effort in a meal. Yesterday I finally decided to make it despite being tired. I prepared the lasagna put it in the oven and eagerly waited for the timer to go off. When it did I went to take out the lasagna out of the oven only to find that I had switched it off accidentally when I was turning off the hob! And that is why I shouldn’t make lasagna when I’m tired…. My lasagna was still partially raw and the oven temperature had dropped significantly. I took the lasagna out and pre-heated the oven again and put it back in to cook. This time making sure the oven was on. Dinner was delayed by an hour but good things are always worth the wait.

GF and Low FODMAP lasagna (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• GF lasagna sheets – I used 8 sheets. (I used Sainsbury’s FreeFrom)
• 1 can (400g) of chopped tomato
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste*
• 250g lean minced beef
• 2 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
• handful of chopped green part of spring onion
• pinch sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon of garlic infused oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• Grated Grana Padano cheese
• pinch asoefetida (optional)
• 1/2 a mozzarella ball (optional)
• For the bechamel sauce:
  • approx 400ml lactose free milk – I used Arla’s Semi Skimmed Lactofree Milk
  • 2 tablespoon rice cuisine for extra creaminess (optional)
  • 20g butter
  • 20g AP GF flour – I used Doves all purpose white flour
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 5 cloves

*Remember to check the labels for onion and garlic. For those of you in the UK you can look for some safe brands here.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Drizzle a pan with garlic infused olive oil. Once hot add the minced beef. Brown the meat.
3. Add half of the tomato passata and the 2tbsp tomato paste. Mix everything together bringing to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat and add the remaining tomato passata and a pinch of sugar.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add a pinch of asaefotida and chives, spring onion and basil. Mix in well.
6. Simmer for a 10 minutes. Sauce should still be a little runny to ensure that the lasagna sheets cook well.
7. For the bechamel sauce add nutmeg and cloves to the milk and warm up. Strain the milk to remove the cloves. Keep milk aside.
8. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the flour and mix quickly to form a paste.
9. Add milk slowly mixing continuously. Keep adding the milk slowly while mixing vigorously.
10. Once all the milk is added, add the rice cuisine if using. Mix well and simmer until it thickens to the right consistency.
11. Take off the heat.
12. Start layering the lasagna. I used 2 lasagna dishes. Start with a layer of meat sauce, drizzle some bechamel sauce, add some grated Grana Padano cheese and small pieces of mozzarella (optional) and finally a lasagna sheet. Repeat this another two or three times. Layer the top lasagna sheet with bechamel sauce a few dollops of the sauce and cover with grated Grana Padano cheese.
13. Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes. Cook longer if the sheets are still slightly hard.
14. This recipe makes quite a gooey lasagna. Enjoy!

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