Summer vegetable lasagne

A Jamie Oliver 30 minute meal took me at least an hour and a half last night. I was doubling the recipe so there was more chopping and preparing involved. The end result was worth it, Steve said it was the nicest vegetarian meal he had ever had, a compliment indeed. It wasn't the most child friendly of meals due to the large amount of green vegetables in it, but due to the fact we had 10 people to feed I didn't want to have to cook two seperate meals. I served this with a really good Tomato Salad, (see entry above)

Ingredients

Serves 6 - 8 
A bunch of spring onions
½ a 30g tin of anchovies in oil
6 cloves of garlic
700g asparagus
500g frozen peas
300g frozen broad beans
Large bunch of fresh mint
300ml single cream
1 lemon
300ml vegetable stock
500g cottage cheese
2 x 250g packs of fresh lasagne sheets 

Parmesan cheese
Fresh thyme (or a pinch of dried thyme)

Method

Boil the kettle.
Pour the oil from the anchovies into a large frying pan and place on a medium heat. Finely slice the spring onions and half of the anchovies and then add them to the pan.
Crush the six cloves of garlic into the pan and fry for a few minutes ensuring that the garlic doesn’t burn.
Trim the pointed tips off the asparagus and put aside, then trim the woody ends from the other side and discard. Finely slice the stems of the asparagus and add the stems to the pan, adding a splash of water from the kettle. Keep stirring so nothing catches.
After a few minutes, add the peas and broad beans along with a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir well.
Pick and roughly chop up the mint leaves then add them to the saucepan along with the cream. Grate in the zest of half a lemon.
After a few minutes, use a potato masher to mash some of the filling to create texture. Cover with the vegetable stock and bring to the boil before adding 250g of cottage cheese.
Give everything a good stir and cook for a few more minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Take the vegetables off the heat and spoon around one quarter of the mixture into a large roasting tray approx 30cm x 35cm deep dish. Top with a lasagne sheet and a generous grating of parmesan cheese.
Repeat the layers of vegetable and lasagne sheets until you have used all of the filling and then top with a final sheet.
Mix the remaining 250g of cottage cheese with a splash of boiled water and then spread over the lasagne.
Drizzle olive oil over the asparagus tips and fry in the empty frying pan before placing them onto the lasagne. Sprinkle over the thyme along with another good grating of parmesan and a final drizzle of olive oil.
Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes until the topping has browned.