It was one of those days where I had forgotten to get any meat out of the freezer, it was really too late to do anything about it and it was a Monday which is often a meat-free day for us. And there sitting proudly on the kitchen worktop; making it’s challenge; was the pumpkin I’d bought for Halloween but never got round to using it. A quick peruse of the interecipenet yielded a plethora of recipes from curries to pies to pasta. I plumped for a lasagne which looked simple enough. Although as per I didn’t exactly follow the recipe. For a start it used spinach, of which I had none. I was going to substitute it with kale from the allotment but Paul had also brought some broccoli leaves so they got used instead. Then it had some long convoluted side recipe for making a tomato sauce which took ages to make. As I am far too lazy and impatient to be messing about more than I have to I resorted to the Nigella school of cooking and opened a tin of chopped tomatoes instead. Quick, easy and can’t go wrong. As for the béchamel sauce; it’s been a while since I made it the proper way and it was the first time attempting it on the induction hob. Instead of my usual turn up the heat and hope for the best approach; which has resulted in a few disasters; complete with inch thick burnt matter welded to the bottom of the saucepan; I played it cautiously and kept to the lowest heat settings and made the best béchamel I’ve made in a long while. The only issue was how quickly the air fryer browned the top so rather than the Parmesan being all gooey it turned into a solid crispy topping.
Another one to go on the rotation list as it got the Paul seal of approval.
Ingredients
- 400g pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1cm cubes
- 2-3 kale leaves, roughly shredded
- 1 ½ tins chopped tomatoes
- 50g Parmesan cheese
- 50g butter
- 50g flour
- 500ml milk
- Lasagne sheets, how many will depend on the size of your dish.
Method
- Preheat the air fryer to 190C
- Place the pumpkin in a roasting tin, drizzle with enough oil to coat and roast until soft and lightly browned.
- In the meantime gently steam the kale until wilted and tender then set aside.
- Over a medium/low heat melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan then add the flour. Mix until it forms a paste.
- Add a small amount of the milk, whisking all the time until it is combined with the paste. Continue to add the milk in this way until all the milk has been used and you have a creamy béchamel sauce.
- Mix the roasted pumpkin with the tomatoes.
- Once everything is ready assemble the lasagne.
- Grease a baking dish and add half the pumpkin and tomato mixture. Add a layer of lasagne sheets and pour over half the béchamel sauce. Scatter the kale over the sauce and add another layer of lasagne sheets. Add the remaining pumpkin and tomato mix and a layer of lasagnes sheets.
- Cover with the béchamel sauce and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.
- Select BAKE on the air fryer and pre-heat to 175C. Bake the lasagne for 35-40 minutes until the lasagne sheets are tender.
- Serve with garlic bread and enjoy.
If pumpkin is out of season butternut squash can be used instead.
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