Layers

Lasagne

Even though I am decidedly carnivorous my wife is a committed vegetarian and I therefore often find myself adapting recipes for the flesh-aphobe. My vegetarian lasagne is one I am particularly proud of. Whilst it can never be quite as good, for me, as the combination of slow cooked disintegrating pork and beef, tomatoes, basil, cheese. white sauce and pasta I think it comes pretty damned close. I will share it here and would appreciate any feedback or suggestions:

Ingredients:

Tomatoes (tinned)
Mushrooms
Aubergine
Courgette
Chestnuts (skinned and boiled)
Basil (or pesto)
Garlic
Béchamel or White Sauce (if you don’t know the recipe then find out)
Salt & Black Pepper
Cheese – Parmesan and one other – Peccorino is good, as is an ordinary mature cheddar but whatever suits your tastes. Hard cheeses ar better

1. First things first, make the tomato sauce. Now this dependsg on your own tastes to a large extent but I like to put a couple of chopped cloves of garlic and some ground fennel and coriander seeds into the oil, add the sliced mushrooms and fry gently for about 5 mins. A minute of two before you add the tomatoes add a glug of balsamic vinegar and reduce. Add the tomatoes, salt and a little sugar. Add a cupful of vegetable stock and cook gently for about 20-25 mins until the sauce is well reduced. During this time you can add herbs such as rosemary and thyme if you wish but it is completely up to you. A really good addition if you have any is the rind from a hard cheese such as parmesan or Peccorino. Left in during the slow cook and retrieved before use it will add a really deep savoury depth to the sauce. This works particularly well if it is the same cheese as you use later on.

2. Slice the courgette and aubergine thinly into rounds and set aside, for a little extra smokiness you can char them slightly under a hot grill or in a dry frying pan.

3. Roughly chop the chestnuts into an uneven rubble of varying sizes, none to small.

4. Now start building up the layers

5. A layer of pasta sheets in the bottom then spread some of the tomato sauce. Scatter a handful of the chestnuts and some basil leaves or dollops of pesto. Ground pepper on top.

6. Next a layer of aubergine rounds and spread some white sauce on top. Sprinkle a small amount of the mixed grated cheeses onto the white sauce. Ground pepper on top.

7. Another layer of pasta and tomato sauce, sprinkle the chestnuts and basil leaves (or pesto). Ground pepper on top. Keep some chestnuts back for the top layer.

8. Next a layer of courgette slices and a final layer of pasta on top. Generously spread white sauce to cover completely.

9. Generously sprinkle the mixed cheeses over the white sauce along with the reserved chestnuts (pushing them into the sauce slightly). A final grinding of black pepper

10. Place into the oven at gas mark six (200C or 400F) for about 50-60 mins

I really hope you enjoy this one as much as I do. Non-veggie version at some point soon but the main difference is in the tomato sauce

Cooking Lessons

I have often thought that the greatest obstacle to anyone learning to cook is fear. Sometimes joking with friends that like a wild animal, complex dishes will smell the fear and rebel accordingly (I can cook, not a comedian though). My wife has been trying to get me to give people lessons for ages but I have resisted until recently. You really have to put yourself out there to teach anything and I’ll admit to be being a bit scared.

I am going to have a trial run with some friends and their grown-up children soon and will be posting some thoughts on what I plan to do and recipes etc.

I think sauces are a good place to start. They offer the chance to hone solid basic skills and techniques and quickly open the door to a wide variety of dishes. If you can get good at making sauces lots of things fall into place and understanding how to make good gravy, soups, marinades and pasta is not too far away.

So here we go (updates on progress soon).

Daily Bread

Had an idea for a spelt bread loaf with some sesame goodness. Might try it out tonight, will give recipe and reports if it works

Classroom Innovation

Fabulous Stuff

Eight Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom – Google Docs

e-Scape

Link as promised. WWW.teru.org.uk/ in the projects section

This project has support in the England, Ireland, Australia and Scotland. Anyone interested in e-assessment should go on over and have a look.

e-Scape February 4th 2009

Just got back from the e-Scape Stakeholder meeting. Lots of progress. Brilliant team of creative and inspiring people. More links to follow shortly, along with a better description of this fascinating project

Starting out

First things first

Well here goes folks. Have started and stopped and started blogging on a couple of occasions but this time around I have decided just to write about what I love.

I want to share thoughts on the two big passions in my life (apart from my beautiful wife that is). I spend a big part of every day either using technology to help me gather and communicate technology or cooking. Sometimes both at the same time thanks to the joys of wi-fi. Communicating with people who share either of these interests is always a joy. So lets go

I will post on these two areas (sometimes others) and see where it leads