[MUSIC] Hi, I'm Maya, welcome to my kitchen. I've always loved the taste of lasagna, but I always thought it would be really difficult to make. It had all those layers and I thought it must have 100 different ingredients. Well, it turns out it's actually really easy to make. So today, we're going to make a Ground Chicken and Mushroom Lasagna. I precooked my pasta. So let's get started. We're going to start by making a little meat sauce. And the meat sauce just starts with a bit of olive oil, pour that in, and let that warm up a little bit, and then I'm going to saute some onions. [MUSIC] They're going to start to sizzle nicely. And I'm just going to toss those around in the olive oil so that they start to get a little bit glassy. Now, I'm going to give the onions a head start because you don't want your garlic to burn. It adds a weird flavor to the food. So I'm just going to let the onions go for a minute. And while that's starting I'm going to multitask. I'm going to take a small pot to make my white sauce. And I'm going to start heating that up, and in that pot we're going to put a little bit of butter. Just a little pat of butter, and we're going to end up with a creamy cheesy white sauce to layer in with the meat sauce. Super delicious. So my onions are getting nice and glassy, and now I'm just going to add some nice fresh garlic cloves, and I'm going to push them through this press. The easiest way to get garlic into small pieces is just to push it through a press like that. And the smells in this kitchen are already starting to make my mouth water. Okay, so in the mean time, my butter has melted nicely in this pot. And I'm going to add a little bit of cornstarch in here. And what the cornstarch is going to do, it's just going to thicken up my white sauce. You might need to lift it off of the heat so that your butter doesn't burn. Okay, this is such a good smell. So I'm going to keep my onions moving because I don't want anything to burn, but we still want to give the garlic and onions time to release all of their flavors. Okay now, my cornstarch and butter is all nicely combined, and I'm going to add a little bit of milk now, and I'm going to add it slowly, and I'm going to mix as I add it. [MUSIC] Okay, now, this is the base for my white sauce. Believe it or not, that is going to thicken. I'm just going to turn down the temperature a little bit, and I'll keep checking in on it while I make my meat sauce. I'll keep mixing it around to make sure it doesn't get lumps. To that sauce, I'm going to add a little bit of salt, not too much because there are going to be young kids eating this. And, we're going to start to get ready to add our meat to the nice onion and garlic mixture. This is ground chicken fine meat, and basically, you just want to break it up and brown it nicely. This is when we get to add the flavors. I'm using coriander because I think, coriander you can add it to any kind of meat, and it takes the meatiness out of it and adds some nice sophisticated flavoring. So I'm going to sprinkle some of this on top. I'm going to add a bit of paprika too, for color. And, some mild chili powder. Just to bring out the flavors of the meat and also to get the children used to the flavors of different spices. Okay, I'm going to mix this around. Okay, the meat sauce also needs a little bit of salt, again, not too, too much. [MUSIC] And I'm going to just put a little pinch of sugar, just to balance my flavors. In the meantime, a little bit of pepper to your white sauce. Any kind of black pepper will work. Okay? Now my meat is browning beautifully. Those smells are so good. Okay, so I'm going to add my mushrooms now to my chicken, those were cut up lovingly by my little boys, and I'm just going to incorporate the mushrooms into the chicken. Make sure all those spices get mixed in with both the chicken and the mushrooms. And don't forget to give your white sauce a mix. Okay, so my white sauce is thickening up nicely. And as it starts to thicken, I'm just going to take a handful of my grated Monterrey Jack or mozzarella cheese, and I'm going to plop it inside to add that cheesy flavor to my white sauce. And we're almost there. We need to add a bit of tomato sauce. And this can be a homemade tomato sauce. Or it can be an organic one that you buy from a store if you're short of time, and we're going to add that to our meat. And that is going to be our red sauce. So lasagna is just pasta with two sauces, one red and one white. Okay, so once my cheese has melted in the white sauce and your white sauce is a little bit thick, you actually just want to turn it off. And leave it there, and wait for your red sauce to finish cooking. [MUSIC] Okay, now it's time to put our lasagna together. My casserole dish has been lovingly greased by a three year old. They love doing that job. And now all we're going to do is take our pre-cooked lasagna sheets. So we're going to lay the sheets of lasagna down, and if your pasta sticks together slightly, it doesn't matter. You can just take out the bits that aren't stuck together and layer them on. There's my completely imperfect base layer for my lasagna. Now, we're going to spoon some of the meat sauce on first. And we're just going to layer this meat sauce on top. And then you're just going to kind of gently pat it flat a little bit. And now, we're going to add a little bit of our white sauce. Just going to drizzle that on top for flavor. So about a third of the white sauce is going to go down that way. And now, we're going to do another layer of pasta. [MUSIC] Okay, now, we're going to add the rest of the meat sauce. Pour it out on to our lasagna. There's no tidy way to do this. And I can already hear the little people running to come and taste this. Okay, so we've got our second layer of meat sauce. We're going to add another third of the white sauce for flavor. Now, I'm going to put my final layer of pasta on top. For this last layer, it's great if you can find a few whole sheets, but if you don't have any whole pasta sheets left, no problem. Okay, I've got my last layer on, and now all I have to do is top it. Drizzle it on top like this. And I'm just going to smear this along the top. Sprinkle some nice mozzarella or Monterrey Jack cheese generously over the top. The last thing I need to do is cover it with some tin foil, and then I'm going to bake it in the oven at about 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or you can put it on your fridge or freezer, and bring it out when it's time to eat and cook it then. It's a really easy dish because it lasts for awhile in the fridge or the freezer, and you can bring it out anytime you need it. Let's go put it in the oven. [MUSIC] My lasagna is ready. It's golden brown, and it was bubbling just a few minutes ago when I took it out. Now, we're going to cut into it and see how we did. Okay, there's no easy way to get this out. You just have to kind of dig deep and scoop under. Mm, messy and yummy. Okay, time to go call the little ones for lunch. [MUSIC] Looks like we have some happy customers. Remember, lasagna looks difficult to make, but it's actually pretty easy. You can put in whatever you like, beef, or chicken, or lamb. And it's really just a kind of pasta with sauce that's arranged in layers. So, thanks for joining us. I'm Maya, hope to see you again soon. [MUSIC]
