Saffron Lasagna With Basil Ground Beef....Excellent, Trust Me


Today even though is not Sunday is a special day for the financial future of Greece.  The parliament is going to vote for the osterity measures that it has to take to get itself out of the mess it got itself in.

We live very close to "Sintagma Square" and the Parliament where there is a battle going on between the Greek people, who are against the measures, and the Swat teams. The result is lots of tear gas and chemicals in the atmosphere causing us to be locked at home with the windows shut to keep the gases out but still.  So I said "to heck with it, I'll fix Lasagna"!

To  make saffron lasagna with basil ground beef you will need.
Serves 6
-  18 rectangles of the dry (in the box) lasagna which do not need to be precooked.
-  1 liter of milk.
-  1 cup milk extra.
-  500 gms of ground beef.
-  50 gms of butter.
-  50 gms of flour.
-  0.25 gms of Greek red saffron powder dissolved in the 1 litre of milk.

-  A handful of leaves of fresh basil chopped.
-  1 long sweet red pepper sliced.  (optional).

-  1 onion roughly chopped.
-  5 cloves of garlic finely chopped.
-  150 gms of freshly grated parmezan cheese.
-  salt, pepper, nutmeg for both the bechamel and the ground beef.
Method:
-  Make a thin bechamel sauce with the butter, flour and safron milk. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste, set aside.  The color of the bechamel will be yellow.
-  Add enough olive oil just to cover the bottom of a skillet, heat and add onion and stir fry on high heat for 3-4 minutes.
-  Add garlic, stir fry for 1 minute max.
-  Add the ground beef and brown on all sides.


-  Add salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste.
  Lower heat, simmer for about 5 minutes uncovered.
-  Turn off heat, add the chopped basil, mix and set aside.


-   Laddle some bechamel sauce to cover the bottom of the rectangular baking dish.
-  Add the first layer of six rectangular lasagna pieces.
-  Laddle some bechamel sauce to cover the first layer of lasagna.
-  Add ground beef to cover the bechamel.
-  Add a few slices of the sweet red pepper ( optional ).
-  Sprinkle 1/3 of the parmezan cheese.
-  Repeat the above for the second layer of lasagna. Add lasagna, ground beef, sweet peppers, and parmezan.
-  For the third and last layer of lasagna:
-  Ladle the rest of the béchamel, sprinkle the rest of the parmezan.
-  Add the one cup of extra milk all over the surface and sides.
-  Top with three knobs of butter.

-  Bake for 20 minutes to 30 minutes max in a preheated oven  at 220 degrees C.
-  When time is up, take out from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes till you prepare the salad.
Serve and enjoy!!
Stelio 

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