Lasagne

Another freezing cold day, but it was livened up by real reindeer and an animatronic polar bear at Gateshead's Frost Fair.

There were no reindeer for tea, just a blast of 1970s lasagne (coincidentally, Hugh Fearnley Whearnley's got a good recipe for one in today's Guardian as well).

You'll need:

bolognese sauce - recipe here from August
some sheets of lasagne - you could probably go to town here and make your own, but ours was Morrisons value, and tasted no worse for that
lots of grated cheese (preferably mature cheddar)
black pepper
a bechamel sauce (the amount depends on how big your lasagne dish is - ours was A4-sized today)

For the bechamel, I used:

about 1/3 pint of full cream milk
a large knob of butter
a heaped tablespoon of flour
lots of freshly grated nutmeg

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan, and add the flour. Swish about until the butter has been absorbed into the flour - you've now got a mixture called a roux. Little by little, add the milk, making sure each time that it's absorbed into the roux - you want a really nice, smooth paste, with no lumps. Keep stirring, and gradually add all the milk. Grate some nutmeg into the sauce, and then heat until it thickens - you probably need to give it a good stir every minute or so.

Right. Stick the oven on at a sensibly high temperature - 180-200 degrees C. Now assemble the lasagne. Take one large squarish/rectangular dish (makes it easier when you've got rectangular sheets of pasta). Stick a layer of bolognese on the bottom, followed by a layer of pasta sheets. Repeat. Pour the bechamel sauce all over the top pasta sheet, and let it trickle down the layers. Sprinkle with grated cheese (you don't need a huge amount).

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or so - once the top is browned and bubbling it's ready. It goes well with a nice green salad, and maybe a bit of baguette (I suppose it should be garlic bread if you're being authentically retro...).

Spaghetti bolognese

An oldie, but a goodie, to quote my mum. (note - a goodie, not a Goodie. That would be something entirely different.)

I suspect this recipe is nothing like an authentic bolognese, but hey, this is what I remember my mum making in the 1970s, and it was one of the first things I learned to cook, so this is what we have too.

Makes enough for 4-6 (depending on how greedy you are).

500g lamb mince (can be done with beef or pork too, but I like lamb the best)
one large onion, chopped
one clove of garlic, finely chopped
couple of sticks of celery, chopped
diced peppers (we had a bit of red and green pepper in this today, as that's what was left in the fridge - sometimes I also add some courgette, or carrots)
a tin of tomatoes
tomato puree - a tablespoon (I didn't use this today, as I still had some sauce left from the pizza on Sunday, which I bunged in instead)
couple of bay leaves
black pepper
dried mixed herbs (you could use thyme, oregano, basil...you choose)

Fry the mince in a hot pan until it turns brown. Add the garlic and onion, and fry until translucent. Throw in the rest of the celery and peppers, and cook until softened. Add the tomatoes (and a little extra water - rinse out the tomato can), tomato puree, bay leaves, herbs and black pepper, and heat until it bubbles. Turn down, and simmer for a while - an hour or more is perfect. It's edible after 30 minutes (especially if you use passata instead of the tomatoes, as the sauce cooks down quicker).

Eat with lots of spagetti and parmesan cheese. Twirling around the fork optional.