Best Lasagne Recipe with vegetables

Over the years I've tried several Lasagne recipes that were good but mainstream, some too rich and others a disastrous slop. Mostly the recipes did not involve vegetables and were just laden with meat, tomato and cheese. Yesterday I merged 2 recipes and some tweaking of my own. The result was wholesome, hearty, morish without being too rich & heavy. I used Jamie Oliver's recipe from Ministry of Food and a recipe from bestrecipes.com

Serves 4-6 (freezes well)

Bolognese Sauce

3 Rashers of streaky bacon

2 Onions

3 Cloves garlic

2 Carrots

2 Celery

1 field mushroom (or use 200g button mushrooms)

2 Tsp Dried Oregano

500g Good quality mince beef

2x 400g Tinned tomatoes (I had 1 cherry tomatoes and 1 roma tomatoes tins in the pantry)

The Rest

4 sheets of instant lasagne

1x 250ml tub of ricotta cheese

1 Egg

1/2 cup Grated Parmesan cheese

300g Grated Cheese

To make the Bolognese sauce

Heat a large skillet on medium high and use scissors to cut the bacon into the pan. No oil is needed as the bacon fat will melt into the pan. Meanwhile chop the garlic and onions. Bacon should be crispy and dark brown. Add in the onions and garlic and dried oregano. Fry till fragrant. Meanwhile roughly chop the celery and carrots. Add to skillet with mince beef and tinned tomatoes and chopped mushrooms. Bring to a boil and stir to break up the meat. Then let it simmer for 45 minutes. Why so long? This ripens the flavour. You need minimal salt with this method. After 45 mins, taste it and season with salt & pepper if needed. Set aside and let it cool slightly. Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Make the Cheese layer.

While the bolognese sauce is simmering, place the ricotta cheese in a bowl and crack in the egg. Put in about 3/4 of the other cheeses and stir to combine.

Build the Lasagne pie

in a large lasagne dish place one layer of bolognese sauce, then a layer of the lasagne sheet, then the cheese. Now top up with the last bit of bolognese sauce, lasagne and cheese. Sprinkler the last bits of cheese on top. Put in the oven for about 30 mins till Cheese is bubbling and browned on top. Dig in!