Butternut Squash and Goat's Cheese Lasagne

I discovered the delicious combination of roasted butternut squash and goat's cheese at university when making cheapo pasta bakes. Since then I've smartened this recipe up a bit, developing it into a lasagne, which is of course a glorified pasta bake, but it seems to impress friends a little bit more.

These are the basic ingredients, although I actually missed the flour, butter, garlic and oil out of this shot for no apparent reason.

Serves 2 hungry people - fills a 22cm square tin.
Prep: 30 mins
Cooking time: 1hr 30min (but you can prep/relax during this time!)

Ingredients*:
50g plain flour (£0.015)
50g butter (£0.196)
500ml milk (£0.40)
Half a butternut squash (£0.50)
1 tbsp oil (olive, sunflower, vegetable - whatever you have) (£0.02)
2 cloves of garlic (£0.05)
500ml passata (£0.44)
9 lasagne sheets (£0.20)
1 tub of soft goat's cheese (£1.75)

Total price: £3.57 (or £1.79 per serving)

*All prices are taken from tesco.com and are correct at time of writing and are a priced according to the amount used.

Recipe:

1) Start by preheating the oven to 200C. Cut the butternut squash roughly into 1cm cubes, I kept the skin on, but you can peel if you prefer. Chuck the squash into a roasting tin (I used the same tin as I would make the lasagne in to save on washing), crush over 1 clove of garlic, pour over the oil, season with salt and pepper and stir it around a bit to make sure all the squash is coated and then roast in the oven for 50 minutes, or until soft.

2) When there is about 20 minutes left until the squash will be done, pour the passata into a saucepan, crush in the other garlic clove, season with salt and pepper and simmer on a low heat.

3) While the passata simmers, make the white sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan, and once melted add in the flour and stir to combine. Cook the flour out for a few minutes. Now add 100mls of the milk, and stir into the flour and butter mixture until it is well combined and the sauce is warmed through again. Keep repeating this process, 100ml at a time, until all the milk is added and the sauce is bubbling. The white sauce should be thick enough to coat the pack of a spoon. Once you have the right consistency, take the white sauce off the heat, or it will thicken further.

4) Take the squash out of the oven and if you are using the same dish for the lasagne, transfer the squash to a plate. Now it's time to start layering the dish. Start off by putting a third of the butternut squash into the lasagne dish; add a third of the tomato sauce to coat this and then a quarter of the goats cheese sprinkled on in small chunks. Layer 3 lasagne sheets over this - try not to overlap them or it will take longer to cook. Then spoon a third of the white sauce on top of the pasta sheets. Repeat this process (squash + tomato + goat's cheese --> lasagne sheets --> white sauce) until all 3 layers are done, ending with the white sauce, and then sprinkle the remaining quarter of the goat's cheese on top.

5) Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. If the top starts to get too brown before this time, put a sheet of  tin foil loosely over the top.

Serve with a salad of your choice.

Happy eating! SG x