Good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Combined with physical activity, your diet can help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of chronic diseases, and promote your overall health. The food we eat influences our body’s immune system and how our bodies respond to any infections. So focusing on eating nutritious meals, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak is vital!
To keep on top of your health, why not try out this delicious Spinach And Butternut Lasagna for you and your family (or yourself). Keen? Here’s what you need to whip up this mean dish:
Ingredients (serves 8 portions)
- 9 white lasagna sheets
- 5 ml of vegetable oil
- 20 ml CLOVER Mooi River butter
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 large onion, finely chopped some salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1l ¬ CLOVER 2% low-fat milk
- 60 ml cornflour
- 300 g finely chopped spinach
- 150 ml finely chopped fresh parsley
- 2 ml ground nutmeg
- 1 kg butternut, peeled, deseeded and cut lengthwise into slices
- 500 ml grated CLOVER white Cheddar cheese
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
- Soak the lasagna sheets in warm water until needed.
- Heat the oil and butter in a large pan and fry the garlic, onion, salt and pepper until the onion becomes translucent. Add a tablespoon of water if the mixture becomes dry.
- Mix 125 ml milk and the cornflour until smooth and with no lumps. Heat the remaining milk to a simmer in a large saucepan. Mix the cornflour sludge through the milk and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes while stirring continuously.
- Add the onion mixture, spinach, 125 ml parsley and nutmeg to the sauce. Mix well. Allow the sauce to simmer until the spinach has wilted. Season to taste. Remove from the heat.
- Steam the slices of butternut for 5 minutes until slightly tender, but not mushy.
- Drain the lasagna sheets.
- Spread 250 ml of the spinach sauce over the bottom of a 30 cm x 20 cm ovenproof dish. Arrange 3 lasagna sheets over the sauce. Arrange half of the butternut over the lasagna sheets and sprinkle over an of the white Cheddar cheese.
- Spread another 250 ml spinach sauce over the cheese, followed by 3 more of the lasagna sheets. Arrange the remaining butternut on top of the lasagna sheets. Sprinkle over another of the cheese.
- Spread 250 ml of the spinach sauce over the cheese, followed by the remaining 3 lasagna sheets. Round off the dish with the last of the spinach sauce.
- Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and remove the foil. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for a further 15 minutes until the butternut is tender and the cheese bubbly.
- Allow the lasagna to stand for 10 minutes before serving.
The recipe is available in the Clover SA Food Favourites cookbook, which is filled with great, wholesome and truly South African recipes that will provide you with an omni-sensorial experience. The recipe book has in part been subsidized by Clover because we believe that good food and great memories shouldn’t be limited by price. Also, by purchasing the cookbook, you will be actively helping ladies around South Africa achieve their business dreams through the Clover Mama Afrika project. The project aims to identify women who are already agents of change in their communities and helps train them to become self-sustaining women with skills which then they can use to derive income from, in order to support orphaned and abused children and the elderly and infirm. If you use this recipe, kindly ensure you reference the benefit to Clover Mama Afrika, it’s important for us to achieve publicity for this wonderful project empowering South African women.
Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash
