This a really tasty, non-meat lasagna. Although there are several steps they can be done in advance, and the dish assembled before cooking. It's essential to use the dried mushrooms for a full flavour. Also we use a lot more bechamel sauce than the original recipe suggested. The amount of grated parmesan can be more also.

Lasagna with mushrooms

adapted from the Second Classic Italian Cookbook by Marcella Hazan

40g dried mushrooms

680g fresh mushrooms

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

60g butter

1/2 small onion, chopped finely

75g tinned Italian plum tomatoes, drained and chopped

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

lasagna dough made with 3 eggs (see labels)

Bechamel sauce made with 1000 mls milk

60g grated Parmesan cheese

Soak the dried mushrooms for at least 30 minutes in lukewarm water to cover. After soaking lift out carefully and rinse to remove any grit. Cut into smaller pieces. Filter the mushroom water through a sieve lined with kitchen towel. Keep for later.

Clean then thinly slice the fresh mushrooms. Heat the oil and 60g butter in large saute pan and cook the onion until translucent. Add the soaked mushrooms, the mushroom water, the chopped tomatoes and the parsley. Allow liquid to evaporate then put in the fresh mushrooms and raise the heat to high. Add salt and pepper and cook on high heat until the liquid exuded by the fresh mushrooms has evaporated. Take off the heat, check for seasoning.

Preheat oven to 180C. 

Thinly smear lasagna dish with butter. Line the bottom of the dish with strips of pasta. Spread a thin layer of mushrooms over the pasta. Cover the mushrooms thinly with bechamel sauce. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan. Cover with another layer of pasta and repeat sequence, to a maximum depth of 6 layers of pasta. Over the topmost layer spread a thin layer of bechamel and sprinkle with the last of the Parmesan. 

Put the dish in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes until nicely golden. After removing from the oven let rest for 15 minutes. Serve slices with a green salad.

This quantity of pasta and filling filled 2 rectangular pottery casserole dishes sizes 20cm x 27cm, depth 5cms. Once cooked and cooled they freeze well.

Lasagna tonight made with leftover ragu, fresh lasagna, mushrooms and cheese sauce. It was good, but there wasn't quite enough of the meat sauce. There was too much pasta for this size dish, so I have cut this into strips and frozen them.

Lasagna

Butter a 25cm x 18cm x 6cm depth baking dish. Cover bottom of dish with part of a lasagna sheet. Spread a layer of ragu on the pasta. Cover with another pasta sheet. Put cooked mushrooms and some cheese sauce on this layer. Cover with another sheet. Repeat ragu, pasta,  mushrooms and cheese sauce. Cover with a final sheet of pasta and pour cheese sauce on top. Put in preheated oven at 180C for 25 minutes. Let cool out of the oven for 15 minutes before eating.

Pasta dough

Break 3 small or 2 large eggs into a bowl. Add  flour gradually (we use organic white bread flour, which is the only flour we have), using a spoon to mix at first, then mix with your hand and continue to add flour until it eventually forms a ball. Work the ball, still gradually adding flour, until it loses its stickiness and becomes pliable. We then feed it through a hand-cranked pasta machine. Put it through on the lowest setting several times, then once through each of the higher settings. You should end up with a nice long piece of dough. At this stage you can cut it or put it through other settings. To make lasagna have a large pan of water simmering. Put each sheet in separately and cook for 3-4 minutes until it rises back to the surface. Take the sheet out of the pan and put to cool in large volume cold water. Drain and lay flat on a tea towel. Repeat with all of the sheets.