Lasagne is the best pasta. It took me a while to work out that ‘lasagne’ is actually used in the same grammatical fashion as ‘tagliatelle’ or spaghetti’ – it means the type of pasta in the plural. You grab a handful of it, stir it in with the sauce, top with cheese and bake in the oven or just cook and dress.
I love proper lasagne with the ragu sauce – the ultimate comfort food, the best cheesy, bubbly, meaty carb fix, not much can beat that. But veggie lasagne needn’t be boring either – you can make it with aubergines, courgettes and a good tomato sauce – or with spinach, like here.
Béchamel also needn’t be daunting. I can make as good béchamel as anybody, but creating cheese sauce is so simple – boil the cream down to desired thickness and you’re laughing. Add the cheese and you’ve got sauce even thicker than you desire.
It doesn’t take long either – true, perhaps it’s not a weekday dinner when you come home from work, but you can make two or three trays of the stuff and happily freeze them.