Today, I decided to sort out some short dated, and past their best before date dried foods. 'Decided' is a bit inaccurate - I sort of drifted into it, having noticed half a pack of gluten free pasta still there after ever such a long time. This I reluctantly discarded, feeling certain it would have been OK to use, but knowing deep down that I never would. I did find some lasagne sheets too, right at the end of their recommended life, which set me thinking.
It has been ages - years in fact - since I had lasagne. Even longer since I made it myself. I had two bags of black beans available, onions, garlic, etc. Recalling the way I used to make it back in the old days, and ignoring the fact I wasn't vegan then. I thought about all of the ingredients and steps. I wanted to achieve a good depth of flavour, with the right balance of tomatoes, herbs and seasoning. I wondered about using ingredients such as soy sauce, and decided to leave extra additions such as these until later. More important to get a good base first. A plan began to form, so I set about cooking the beans.

Black beans are delicious and versatile little beans, otherwise known as 'turtle beans'. They lend themselves particularly well to recipes where mince would traditionally be used.They are of course, much cheaper than their non-vegan counterpart, virtually fat free, and full of fibre and protein.

To cook dried black beans is very easy. No pre-soaking is required. Simply rinse the beans in a colander or sieve, place in a pan with plenty of water and bring to the boil. Boil rapidly for ten minutes, then reduce the heat. Simmer for an hour. The beans are then ready to use as required.

I cooked an entire 500g bag, in 2.5 litres of water. This yielded six cups of cooked beans. The excess I placed into bags (one cup per bag), cooled and put into the freezer ready for another day.

The finished lasagne turned out richly flavoured and delicious, with a creamy textured sauce. I didn't feel it needed any further ingredients to those listed in the instructions below.

I served the lasagne with a selection of simply cooked vegetables. It would be equally good with a crisp salad, and possibly some potato wedges. Garlic bread would make a lovely additional accompaniment.

Here is my recipe:

Black Bean Lasagne

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the tomato sauce:

1/2-1 tbsp olive oil (or use a little water or vegetable stock to keep the fat content down)

1 medium onion, chopped

2-3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 vegan stock cube

2 tsp dried oregano (or use mixed herbs)

2 tbsp tomato puree

Salt and pepper

2 cups cooked (or canned) black beans

For the béchamel style sauce:

600ml soya milk (or other plant milk)

30g cornflour

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

Also required:

12 sheets of lasagne (about 250g)

100g grated vegan cheese - I used cheddar style

Method

• Preheat the oven to 190C
• Put the oil or stock in a large saucepan, add the chopped onion and soften over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.
• Add the crushed garlic, and continue to cook for another 2 minutes.
• Add the tomatoes, crumbled stock cube, oregano, tomato puree and seasoning and simmer for about 10 minutes. 
• Add the cooked or canned black beans and heat through.

Meanwhile make the béchamel style sauce:

• Mix 50ml of the soya milk with the cornflour.
• Heat the rest of the soya milk until it just boils.
• Whisk in the soya milk and cornflour mixture and continue to whisk until the sauce thickens,
• Remove from the heat and stir in nutritional yeast flakes and seasoning.

To assemble:

• Place half of the tomato sauce in the base of a lasagne dish (or divide between four individual dishes).
• Cover with four lasagne sheets.
• Top with half of the Béchamel style sauce.
• Repeat the first three layers once more.
• Top with grated vegan cheese.
• Bake just above the centre of the oven for around 20-30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the top is golden.

Enjoy!