Easy Cheesy Veggie Lasagna
Four Cheese Lazy lasagna
As some of you guys know, my kids are a pain in the arsehole when it comes to food. I find it even more infuriating than most as my Dad was a Chef who was passionate about food, and the Captain and I love food so much we would actually have sex with it, if we could.
So… on this basis, and off the back of my little monkeys still not eating their veggies … I’ve got creative once again, while swigging a very large bottle of Pinot Grigio (I can’t cook without a drink).
This recipe is enough for 6 grown adults and/OR 12 little people.
Ingredients:
- One 250g pack of mild blue cheese
- One 1/2 cups of parmesan cheese
- One cup of Cheddar cheese grated
- 1 lb of shredded Mozzarella
- 250g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia was my preference)
- Ix large onion
- 5x chopped garlic bulbs
- 2 tablespoons ground Nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons Parsley
- Up to 12 sheets of dry lasagne
- 4 Cups of Tomato sauce (shop bought for lazy me, so that was actually 2 bottles of Dolmio sauce with basil)
- One huge pack (approx) 700g of mixed Frozen organic Vegetables
- 75g butter (or 3 massive spoonfuls)
For the white sauce:
- 4 cups of full fat milk
- 500g double cream
- 1 tablespoons of ground nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon of parsley
- 6 tablespoons of plain white flour (or brown) sieved through before adding to milk
- 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
Cooking Method:
- Get the oven heated up to 220 degrees while you’re cooking away. Put all your onions and garlic into a massive pot and start cooking those first with 3 generous nobs of butter (unsalted) until they’re golden brown.
- Once golden brown (after approx 5 minutes), add the frozen vegetable and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Hopefully you were clever enough to have taken the pack out of the freezer at least 45 minutes before so they had defrosted a little.
3. Once you’ve mixed and cooked, add the tomato sauce and stir for another 2 minutes. Then take off the heat.
4. Get out your blender and puree all the vegetables and sauce until it resembles shit after a heavy night out on the town (yes, literally).
5. Once pureed (my kids won’t eat any vegetables if they know about it so I hide all their veg in most dishes), put aside the veggie tomato sauce and start on your white sauce.
6. Pour the milk, ground nutmeg, double cream and parsley into a pan and start heating up for approx 2 minutes. Then start adding the flour through a sieve to stop lumps and keep mixing throughout. Give it another 3-5 minutes and once everything is mixed (add a longer timescale if it’s not), then add the parmesan, cream cheese & blue cheese and cook for another 4/5 minutes.
7. Once the white sauce is ready, get a huge oven dish and start layering the vegetable sauce on the bottom (exactly like you would with a normal meat lasagna). Then add a sheet of dry lasagna, more vegetable sauce & a ladle of the white sauce around the edges. While doing this, also start adding shredded mozzarella cheese between each layer. Yes, its very cheesy but it tastes sooo good!! So for you idiots out there who simply don’t get it… (a) vegetable sauce (B) ladle of white sauce spread around the edges and, (c) then shredded mozzarella on the veg sauce before adding another sheet of lasagne, (d) start the process all over again.
8. Once all the sauce is used up (ensure you have enough white sauce left for the very top layer though), put your final sheets of lasagna on top, spread white sauce over it and sprinkle with parmesan and any remaining mozzarella. Also sprinkle some ground nutmeg across the top and some parsley.
9. Pop the dish into the oven at 180 degrees for approx 45/50 minutes (or until golden brown). See finished dish below……this is friggin delicious!!!
I promise you, the kids will love this and so will any adult who’s a cheese or pasta lover (and doesn’t have issues with calories). As theres so much of this pasta leftover, I tend to cut it into portions and freeze the remainder.
Now for your prize below……. Job well done Mamma!
Being a Mum sucks arse
Getting ill and trying to still be a full-time mum….
As most of us Mums know, getting ill when you have a household to run, is not an option. In fact, its impossible. Unless you are actually dead, or in a coma, you still have to get up and do your crummy, painful, groundhog day, monotonous, shitty, underpaid, “is this really my life?”, how did I age so quickly(?), job. WE GET NO BREAKS!!! We’re Mums. It comes with our thankless, shitfull (my new swear word of the month) kiss-my-arse, no one gives a crap, job.
Can you lay in bed, drinking hot lemon tea (with a shot of Whisky) and recover in peace while watching crap “E Hollywood” TV? Nope. All you can hear are your children running riot outside your bedroom door while your TWO Domestic Helpers and husband (who is gutted you’re ill for selfish reasons) chase after them screaming at the top of their lungs. What can I do, aside from step out of my bedroom, looking like the Devil himself, with tissue stuffed up my nose, eyes streaming, and a look that says “FUCK OFF”. I hide under the duvet and hope everything just goes quiet…. even 30 minutes…. 30 for fuck sake!!!?Q!
Yeh, a great way to sleep off a bad cold. I would rather be given some sort of “pain-killer” to help me doze off but as my Doctor has decided to become bloody conservative lately (maybe I pushed it asking for Morphine), I now have to buy Panadol Extra like every one else and live with the noise/toys every where/moaning husband/miserable Helpers/hairy legs that haven’t been shaved due to a runny nose. What a shame… it sucks arse.
Drug dealers are also selling aspirin/baby laxatives for coke. I’m totally destroyed as there is nothing to alleviate my pain. Being ill in a house with three small children (under the age of 2.5), a husband who resembles a cavalier teenager and two unintelligible domestic Helpers who need constant management/English language courses, getting ill is not an option.
The minute I step out of my bedroom, the chaos stops in a millisecond. Why? because I decided a loooong time ago, to rule MY household by fear. YES, fear. I’ve read my latest parenting book on my beloved Kindle and it was the only one that worked for me. The title …. “Is Beating the kids wrong/really that illegal?”
Basically it said… “DONT TAKE ANY SHIT FROM THOSE LIL’ CUTE MO’FOS!” My kids get one warning and then that’s it. “Time out”, toys taken away for the day, and basically nothing they want to do for a certain amount of time, equivalent to their age.
I don’t scream… All I say is “What a shame? What a bummer!” (American Book obviously, because us British would be saying “What the FUCK is wrong with you kid? Get to your fucking room now and piss off while I drink my can of Stella and decide what your punishment is”)). But they get it. They HATE hearing those words “What a shame” (the Captain & and I actually say it to each other now which is a bit sad but fuck it) and plus it keeps me cool (ish).
Yes they react with statements like “Nooo Mummy…no “What a shame!!” but it’s too late. One strike and your out. There I am, clucking around like Queen Bee on friggin Prisoner Cell Block H (if you don;t remember that Aussie prison show…you’re too young to be reading this) showing them how crap life can be… . It’s either that, or me going fucking mad and screaming at them to go to their rooms for “time out”…. long enough for me to open a bottle of cheap white wine (used later in the evening for a domestic fight with the Captain).
Bringing up kids is hard work people. I am basically talking and explaining things, non-stop, allll fucking day long. Do you know how mentally exhausting that is??? Talking all day to someone who doesn’t even pay you a bonus for your good work?! I HATE talking. I hate the phone for fucks sake and now I have to talk allll day long?!! To people who barely reach my hips and don’t give a shit what I’m saying. Yes, I love them to bits. BUT, they’re driving me mad. Gone are the days of lunch-hours and frivolous bar crawls.
Everything now is about teaching my kids. ie. “Dont lick the floor!!
“Why Mummy?” “Because you’ll injest crap from outside which will make you ill and will inevitably involve me having to drive you to the hospital.. which doesn’t work as ive had an afternoon drink… actually a bottle of wine” . Selfish friggin kids.
“Dont bite you sister?” “
Why? Because I said so…. you irritating fucking monkey (yes, Mummy loves you)”.
“Dont tear your books? Why? because they cost money you annoying little person who I gave life to!”
‘Dont shit on the floor.” “Why? because I’ll rip your head off if you do!! Plus,your nanny will have to clean it up while giving me that knowing, irritating look that says…”You’re his mother…you clean it up“. Yeh…right. Next I’ll be making dinner.
In Hong Kong…Not only am I now feeling and looking like complete shit, but my weight loss regime which was pretty much sorted (drinking booze, zero food and working out, the Rachel Zoe way) has gone down the shitter.
Why? Well, after being on holiday with The Captain and kids in Bali a few weeks ago…. my body (and mind) decided “Fuck it!! Enjoy yourself! Where’s my drinks bitches!!??” So … we ate loads, drank every chance we got (yes even at breakfast to fade out any noise, I screamed across a busy restaurant for a Vodka with my OJ) and those last 5 (ok 10) baby pounds crept back with a vengeance.
Not only do I have to re-start my whole workout and diet thing, but I also have to find the actual will to do it. I can’t be arsed. The only reason I’m still thinking about it is because my old clothes feel too tight and my maternity clothes are absolutely massive. Plus now I feel unwell, all i want to do is lay in bed, eat chocolate (I was never into chocolate!!??) and dream of cosmopolitans. I LOVE COSMOPOLITANS. Yes, more than wine or Vodka.
More than my kids? Somedays… So, I have discovered that to be a good writer…. you need to be honest. How does one be honest? DRINK!! I can’t see any way around it. Yes, it’s very Welsh of me but really…. to write, and be honest about what I find amusing, I have to be slightly inebriated. It’s the truth. The Captain will be horrified and not happy about this “discovery”. BUT, one must do what one must for their craft.
On a separate note, I have been having fun/fights with Helper Numero 2 in my household. The woman is driving me fucking mad. Rude? Yep. She has a look on her face sometimes that says “You drunk bitch, you should be ashamed”…sometimes… I dunno… Im too drunk sometimes. The point is… she’s really fucking annoying me. She lies about everything. She smirks. She shouts at the kids (a big No No). She irritates the shit out of me when I open a 1990 bottle of vintage vino from…. I dunno where. She laughs and jokes when the Captain is home and then scowls when its me (that alone is asking for a slap)… the list is endless. SO…. I have decided to be a complete and utter BITCH in response. It keeps our house in order and if you really knew me… you know this wouldn’t be my natural way. BUT… I live in HK so things change. Who gives a shit! anyway? I don’t know anyone well enough here to care how I react…. unless it’s the police.