this one is from my dad. shoutouts

• 1 celery stick
• 1 or 2 red onions
• 2 large tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes or passata (400-500 g)
• 750 g beef mince
• Couple handfuls spinach (fresh or defrosted and drained)
• Lasagna sheets
• Seasonings (salt/pepper/italian herb mix/whatever)
• Stuff for cheese sauce (plain flour, butter, milk, cheeses)
• Cheese for topping
• Oil

1. Skin 2 large tomatoes (scald in hot water then peel) and chop finely. Keep as much liquid as possible
   
   2 large tomatoes
   
2. In a pot:
   
   Tin of chopped tomatoes or passata
   Chopped fresh tomatoes from step 1
   Enough water till it's a bit over-watery or soupy.
   Reduce until almost chutney-like in consistency.
3. Chop and fry the following till soft:
   
   1 celery stick
   1 or 2 onions
   3 cloves minced garlic (add near the end of frying)
   
4. Add the mince to the onion mix, brown
   
   750 g beef mince
   
5. Once the tomato mix is less watery, add a couple handfuls of spinach and stir in till wilted.
   
   Couple handfuls spinach
   
6. Add the tomato sauce to the mince (and vice versa), season
   
   Salt, pepper, italian herbs, dried garlic, etc
   
7. Make a cheese sauce:
   • In a pan, dissolve plain flour into butter (approx 50:50 by volume, somewhere in the range of 1-2 tbsp each??)
   • Keep adding milk till there's enough sauce. Should be enough for at least 3 layers.
   • Salt and white pepper, then add LOTS of cheese. Make sure the cheese fully melts, don't cool and then reheat it.
8. Assemble lasagna in a pyrex dish (8x12") in the following order, from lowest layer to top:
   • Mince
   • Cheese sauce
   • Lasagna sheets
   • Mince
   • Cheese sauce
   • Lasagna sheets
   • Cheese sauce
   • Cheese
9. Cook in oven for like 30-35 min? Basically only needs the pasta to cook as everything else is already done.
   Either cover the top with foil until the last 5 min or leave the cheese topping out till later in cooking if you don't want it to be overly crispy.

• Use a mixture of different cheeses if poss. I use mild + mature cheddar, little bit of mozzarella on top. Don't recommend mozzarella in the cheese sauce - too stringy - so if you really want mozzarella, only sprinkle it over the top.
• Fills a standard pyrex dish of maybe 8x12" and gives approx 3-4 servings. Uses about 3 lasagna sheets per layer.
• Freezes well.