Food Blog Three

Believe it or not gluten-free lasagne is remarkably tasty. As it came out of the oven I couldn’t say whether it was your regular full-on pasta-layered dish or a low-carb substitute. For those who are trying to lose weight I can truly recommend lasagne a la cabbage. Aswell as being gluten-free each portion is roughly 112 calories.

The recipe which intrigued me uses ricotta and marinara sauce. I did, however, alter the ingredients slightly: in place of the marinara I made a basic bolognese sauce added to ½ lb of mincemeat. I kept some of the tomato sauce back for layering. Recipes generally use minced beef but today I tried the dish with turkey mince. It is more lean but less tasty. 

After browning the mince with a little olive oil in a frying pan I seasoned with salt and oregano to taste. After which I added tinned tomatoes and sliced home-grown ones which are ripening beautifully in pots on our patio. Having survived the heat wave I’m hoping they can escape the blight associated with damp, cold conditions. Today it’s so cold and damp I declined to go for afternoon tea with a friend. While she went to the cinema I stayed in with the heating on.

Continuing the theme of substitutions: in place of ricotta I used feta cheese ─ roughly ¾ lb ─ which I mixed with ½ cup of parmesan and 1 medium egg. You can add parsley to this before setting it to one side. 

Taking ¼ of a cabbage discard the outer leaves and remove whole inner leaves. DON’T do what my recipe says and boil the cabbage leaves to nothingness for ten minutes. You merely need to parboil the cabbage for a few minutes until slightly limp. As the leaves are a substitute for pasta sheets they need to have structure.

 For baking the lasagne I have a 2 lb glass loaf dish which I lightly oiled and for my first layer I spread the tomato sauce over the bottom. On top of that I layered the cabbage leaves and the meat mixed with bolognese sauce over that. The next layer is the cheesy egg mixture.

Then I repeated the layers until I came to the top where it’s good to sprinkle the whole with more grated parmesan. 

It takes around 15-20 minutes to prep and is truly appetising.

Cook at 350 F for 20 minutes et voila! A gluten-free dish which you can serve with salad and enjoy as if it's the real thing. I don't recommend it, I advise it.

ingredients for a family of four of five:-
whole leaves from 1/4 cabbage
3/4 lb feta cheese (or ricotta)
1/4 lb minced beef or minced turkey
bascic bolognese sauce for the mince - 400g tinned tomatoes, 3 fresh sliced tomatoes, 2 carrots finely chopped, 1 medium onion finely chopped, 2cloves garlic finely chopped and salt & pepper to taste
olive oil - 1 tabs
pinch of salt and orgeano to taste
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 medium egg - beaten
parsley to flavour egg and cheese mixture

grated parmesan for the topping
a 2lb loaf tin or dish or pyrex dish of similar capacity