h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a recipe I acquired recently, and it works very well. Even committed meat eaters think it's great.

Ingredients:

400g can chopped tomatoes
5 or 6 medium field mushrooms, peeled and sliced
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped into cubes
Vegetable stock cube or teaspoon bouillon paste
4 red peppers, skinned,deseeded and chopped
2 courgettes, chopped into cubes or sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
Medium onion, chopped
Tub of soft cheese eg. Philadelphia (the one with garlic and herbs is especially good)
1 Pint of milk
2 tablespoons cornflour
Herbs to taste, either fresh or dried. Basil, thyme, majoram and oregano are all good
6 sheets oven ready lasagne
2 tablespoons olive oil

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to the temperature suggested on your lasagne box (usually about 180-200C)
2) Lightly fry the onion and garlic in the oil until soft, but not coloured. Add the carrots and fry for another 2-3 minutes.
3) Add the courgettes, mushrooms, peppers, chopped tomatoes, stock cube or bouillon and herbs and simmer on a medium heat for 25-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
4) While the vegetable sauce is cooking, heat the milk until boiling. Use a little of the boiling milk to make a paste with the cornflour, then return this to the rest of the milk. Simmer gently.
5) Melt the soft cheese slowly into the milk (it may be best to remove from the heat at this stage). Stir until no lumps remain. If this proves problematic, use a whisk or put it through a blender.
6) To assemble the lasagne, spread half of the vegetable sauce in the bottom of an oven-proof dish. Top this with 3 sheets of lasgne, followed by half the white sauce. Repeat the layers. Cheese can be grated on top if desired.
7) Cook in the oven for the time suggested on the lasagne packet, usually about 30 minutes.

Serve with a green salad and lots of crusty bread. Bon appetit!

vegetarian pasta keeps me sane! Apart from the abovementioned lasagne (mouth watering, badly fed tum turning circles) I am incredibly fond of spaghetti sauces based on tomatoes. You take a 5kg bag of tomatoes, any other vegetables you can get your hands on and sort of simmer them. And trust me, the more vegetables the better. For variation base the flavouring on alternatively: olive, basil, chilli, etc. Or just do an incredibly tomatoey sauce or general vegetables. The cheese can be grated over, melted in or constucted as a separate sauce. It's really simple: 2 cups milk, 2 tbsp flour (to thicken it) and butter. Chop in the cheese. In fact, the cheese sauce is also an excellent base for a general noodle sauce. Think parsley, carrot bits, etc.
Now here's the brilliant bit: you can combine this with ANY kinds of noodles. Each noodle is different from every other kind. So you can do macaroni cheese then a tomato and basil penne. Make sure any fettuccini you make is green and grate any random cheese over a more olivey sauce. MMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!! I gotta get out of this catered college and start eating some real food!!!!
Lentils also add texture and flavour: I've tried this with green and it works well with general vegetables (plenty of tatoes!)