Lasagne with pumpkin bechamel

Ingredients:

olive oil for frying
a pumpkin piece, about 300 gr
1 onion
1 leek
1 tomato
250 gr tomato puree
about 5 garlic cloves
half a zuchini
salt and pepper
nutmeg
grated cheese
lasagne sheets
minced meat or soymeat
one cup full fat milk
3 tbsp flour
2 tbsp butter (or some more olive oil)
a pinch of cumin seeds
a vegetable stock cube
half a pepper (optional)
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon sugar


First thing, put the pumpkin piece to boil covered in water, until it is soft. Then take out the pumkin, peel it and puree it. Discard the seeds (unless you want to toast them and eat them, quite delicious, but I ve never tried doing it myself) . Don´t throw away the water. Remove the peel and puree the pumpkin. Grate the nutmeg on top of it.

Then,

Fry the chopped onion, cumin seeds, chopped garlic and chopped leeks in olive oil. Add the chopped red pepper. If you are using meat, add it now too. If you are using soy meat, soak it first in hot water for a few minutes, then add it.

 Add the tomato, cut into pieces. Add the bay leave. Fry it all thouroughly. Add a few ladlefulls of the pumkinwater and the tomatopuree. Add the stockcube. Mix and let boil on a low heat for about half an hour. Add more seasoning if neccesary. Remove the bay leaf.

In another pot, heat and melt the butter, or olive oil, and fry the flour and a pinch of salt. Bit by bit, add the milk and pumkinwater, and keep moving with a whisk or a fork, so there are no clumps of flour.  Meanwhile, add grated nutmeg to the pumpkin puree, quite a bit of it. Keep moving the sauce from time to time, and when it has thickened properly, add the pumkin puree and a spoonful of sugar.

Boil some water and add the lasagne sheets and cook them according to the instructions on their packaging. Usually about 8 minutes, with a pinch of salt and a little oil.  Depending on the size of your dish you will need about 3 or 4 sheets per layer, so all in all you need either 9 or 12. 


Keep whisking the bechamel  for a bit even after you turn off the heat.
 Season to taste with salt or half a stock cube.

Now, in a big, ovenproof dish, pour a litte of the pumkin bechamel in as a base. Then, add the first layer of lasagne sheets. Then, on top of that, ladle the red sauce.

Then another layer of red sauce, then a final layer of lasagne sheets.

Pour all the rest of the pumpkin bechamel on top of it. Then, grate the cheese on top.
Now, you can put it in the oven. At about 190 C for 40 to 50 minutes. The top should be golden and the inside not too runny.

This is even better the next day, when reheated in the oven. So it is a great dish to make ahead.