The French Country Challenge

Winter Wonderland

It seems I had just gotten used to fall when winter descended upon us rather precipitously.  Something seems amiss with the seasons when a half-raked pile of leaves I had intended to return to is buried by a sudden snowfall.  Last Thursday the snow began as a light dusting, and proceeded to partially melt off over the course of sunny Friday.  It was enough, however, for the dogs to get reacquainted with this fabulous phenomenon, leaving them bounding and sliding about in sheer joy, that is when their noses weren't snuffling through the strange cold powder in search of chunks of ice to scarf down.

(Don't get your tongue stuck Kali!)

We thought it was a freak early light dusting of snow, but as the temperature dropped further over the weekend the real snow set in and it would appear winter is truly upon us.  By Monday we had attained veritable winter wonderland status, and we set out to take the dogs to the forest to enjoy it to the maximum.  However, unfortunately both forests near us had been commandeered by hunters!  Even though I was wearing my highlighter lime ski jacket we figured it wasn't all that safe, so we sadly had to bundle the confused pups back into the car and return home.

(Hunting underway. Thanks for your understanding.)

(Warning: hunting day. Live ammunition/bullets in use.)

And I suppose I have to admit...yes, we have finally put the heating on, if only to keep the pipes from freezing!  We have been perfectly comfortable with just a roaring fire in the evening and a small space heater in the bedroom, and our central-heat-denying efforts have indeed been rewarded, as we just received the latest utility bill.  As it was based on estimated consumption, the bill was still as heart-stoppingly high as last year, but I took the meter reading myself and phoned it in, and they sent us an adjusted bill reduced by fully half!  Though with this early set-in of winter we had to put the central heating on now, we have set the thermostat as low as possible, so we're hoping to still have smaller bills.

Experimenting with Fennel Root & an Identification Challenge!

In the course of clearing out the summer plants from the garden, we took out our remaining fennel plants (one of which we had cut already in order to dry the feathery leaves to be used later - apparently if brewed as tea it is good for the digestion!), which happened to be neighboring the parsnips. Much to our surprise, the tap root of the fennel plant was quite large and looked nearly identical to a parsnip! So much so in fact that we had to take a good look and make sure it was indeed attached to a fennel plant. Which brings me to the challenge part of the post... Take a look at the photo below, which is a lineup of a mixture of fennel roots and parsnips, and see if you can tell the difference!  I'll have to think of some prize to award anyone who correctly identifies all of them in the comments below (unless of course the difficulty was mine and you all get them all right).  :)

Anyway, this resemblance made us rather curious if indeed this enlarged tap root was edible. After some online searching, the only thing that was clear was that there is a lot of confusion surrounding this poor plant, about what should be called root, bulb, stem, etc (not to mention between the herb fennel and the vegetable fennel).  I did finally find one forum in which a few different people successfully ate it without dying or suffering any ill side effects, so we decided to give it a shot.

The idea was to make a soup, using other root vegetables as well as the small fennel 'bulbs' we had (they had been developing nicely, then when we came back from vacation this summer we found they had gone tall and weedy instead of developing the proper enlarged base that makes the vegetable fennel).  However, we were also curious what it tasted like on its own, so I decided to dice it up and boil it until tender.  The chunks we sampled weren't bad, but to be honest, didn't actually taste of much; they were just a bit starchy like a potato, but not as tasty.  So considering these results and at the suggestion of a friend (thanks for the idea Lizzie!), I simply used a handheld blender to whiz up the chunks in the water they boiled in to use to thicken the soup.

The soup was made with the small fennel bulbs, Savoy cabbage, parsnip, carrots and a beet from our garden, potatoes, onions and white beans.  Start by sautéeing the onions in a large pan, then add the other vegetables chopped along with some of the fennel tops and cover with chicken stock. Add the fennel root thickener & a few splashes of worcester sauce, season, and leave to simmer until everything is tender.

Serve as-is, or topped with a bit of fresh cream and/or fresh herbs or chopped chives.  If you're not a big fan of that anise flavor, don't worry, this soup was actually very light and subtle, not overpowering on that front at all.  We also used quite a bit of cabbage, and so made the soup in our large stockpot to have room for it all.  It actually lasted us nearly a whole week, which considering it was only for the price of a few onions, potatoes and a can of beans was quite a good deal!

 

Fall: Heating, Eating, Trick-or-Treating

While we had nearly a week's cold snap of frosts, this past week has warmed back up a little, and has been several degrees above freezing, but still far from warm.  This has upped the stakes in our house-heating challenge considerably, but so far we have stuck to our guns, wanting to see just how long we can leave it until we put the central heating (radiators) on. 

A large part of our motivation for this challenge were the three €500 gas bills we had last winter, but it is also better for the planet to use human heat as much as possible, not to mention saving on all the life-cycle emissions that would result from the production and use of the natural gas.  And since I have a hard time imagining us being able to produce our own natural gas, it also is good practice for more self-sufficient days when hopefully we'll have a wooded lot that can provide our heating fuel.

We have been lighting the fire in the evenings, as a few weeks ago we had a wood delivery of 5 stères of firewood, but otherwise during the day I've just been wearing an additional layer of clothing (so a long-sleeved t-shirt, a fleece and a hooded sweatshirt).  It is actually incredible how it may feel like the house is too cold, but simply putting on another fleece or sweater can remedy the situation rather than cranking up the thermostat.  We had some practice with this last winter out of necessity, when our hot water heater broke down during one of the coldest weeks of the winter with snow on the ground outside and sub-zero temperatures.  I kept all the shutters to the house shut to try to insulate it from the cold as much as possible, had the fire lit, and layered up the clothing, including a fleece hat and fingerless gloves.  This was a little extreme, and I don't think I'd do that out of choice again this year, but it was very interesting to see that with a fire lit and warm clothes on we could survive comfortably even in the dead of winter.  It must also be a testament to the construction techniques of generations past, as the thick stone walls of our house keep the place remarkably cool in the summer and definitely warm-er (if not exactly 'warm') in the winter.

So this year we are seeing just how late we can leave it to put the central heating on at all, and then when we do have to turn it on so we don't have to worry about pipes freezing, we'll just keep it set very low and still make use of the fire and an electric heater we have bought for the bedroom (waking up to a cold house with a cold bathroom was definitely the worst part), which should still save a lot of gas and money, as electricity is comparatively cheap in France with 80% of it nuclear.

As you may know the last couple of weeks have also been marked by continual strikes here in France as workers protested pension reform legislation, leading to fuel shortages.  This also happened to coincide with World Go Vegan Week, so we decided to make use of the food we had in the garden and give the shops a miss so as to conserve fuel and also try eating vegan for the week.  As we eat very little meat already, that wasn't really missed, but it was difficult trying to imagine a week without milk in our tea in the morning, butter for cooking and cheese to go on top of whatever we were cooking.  We basically ended up making two large pots that lasted us three nights each, a black eyed pea coconut milk curry and a dish that is already one of our comfort food favorites, quinoa and lentil stew, both with veggies from the garden (the root vegetables we have left - and that I really need to pull up and store before the hard frosts return and truly set in - and some Swiss chard stragglers).

It was a very interesting experiment, and I have to say I really didn't miss the dairy as much as I thought I would.  I probably ate a lot better in the day than I normally do as well, eating nuts and fruit, hummous and olives, oatmeal for breakfast, whereas I would tend to just have cheese and bread.  I actually used to be allergic to milk/dairy when I was little, too, and I have noticed before I don't feel that great when I have been eating too much of it (easy to do here in France!).  Overall I felt lighter and healthier and had a lot more energy, and at the end of the week when we had a pan-fried fillet of salmon with creamed leeks, both of us felt very heavy and almost queasy.  We both also lost a few pounds, so this week we're continuing with the vegan diet as a sort of detox.  While we wouldn't go completely vegan forever, I think it must be healthy to eat a primarily plant-based diet, focusing on vegetables and legumes/pulses with fish fairly often and just the occasional meat and dairy.

A food that would be very welcomed in this would definitely have to be pumpkin/squash, and at the minute, with the leaves turning their glorious fall colors and that delicious crisp feeling of the mornings, I am sorely regretting our decision not to grow any this year.  Last year we had these two fabulous 20-kilogram pumpkins, but the plants took up literally about a third of our total growing space, so we opted to use the room for other things.

We also didn't have any pumpkins to carve for Halloween, a holiday that is growing in popularity here as French children have cottoned on that it means you get to eat as much candy as you want in sanctioned form for one day out of the year.  With our fuel-saving and strict-eating ways the past week we also didn't have any candy in the house for the little princesses and skeletons that came knocking on the door chanting "On veut des bonbons, on veut des bonbons!"  ("We want candy! We want candy!" - not quite the same ring as "trick-or-treat"!), or the strangely polite "Des bonbons, s'il vous plaît!" ("Candy, please!").  Fortunately however, the French kids haven't figured out the entire principle of the classic Halloween, that if there aren't treats you get a trick. So luckily we didn't have our house egged or tp'd!

Trash day

Normally, trash day isn't something to get excited about, gathering all the rubbish from around the house and getting it all in the bin and remembering to put the bin outside the night before because the garbagemen come at 7 am.  But tomorrow is a special trash day, the second Wednesday of the month, when people put all the large, bulky objects out on the curb to be picked up by a special dumptruck. I wrote about this back in March, when I picked up a great old table and some planks of wood that were much needed in the garden. And today I had some more fantastic finds, namely some PVC piping (that I'm hoping to use for irrigation in the veg patch), garden fencing, bamboo poles for tying plants up to, a 20 liter plastic container complete with spigot, and last but not least, a pair of perfectly good moon boots, and in my size!

There were plenty of other things that I didn't need or want, but that someone out there could.  It is such a shame that all of it is simply destined for the landfill, when surely most of it could be given a second life by a new owner. But at least for these few items I've been able to "Do the green thing" and reuse them.

Update: I can now add 3 plastic crates, a wooden pallet and 3 sawhorses to the list!

More Mushrooms - Free Food Heaven!

Frequent rains and rather cool temperatures the past couple of weeks have ensured a steady supply of wild mushrooms.  We take the dogs to the forest usually every couple of days, and each time we have come home laden with ceps and boletes.  But until yesterday I had yet to find the other unmistakeable mushroom I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the Parasol mushroom.  While the cep is considered the king of mushrooms, and I would have to say that is true, there are many other mushrooms with tremendous culinary potential, and I have a particular liking for the Parasol. 

It is hard to describe, but it has a sort of woody taste and a lovely texture.  I also think part of the reason I am particular to it has to do with its form, not its taste.  The form in general is part of why it is so easily recognizable, with a long thin stem and a cap that opens out like, you guessed it, a parasol.  But what fascinates me are the extremely delicate gills, which remind me of those slightly crumbly old library books whose pages I have always fingered with such pleasure.

This regular supply of mushrooms has made dinner an easy proposition, as we've simply fried them up in various ways with vegetables, or added them to a quinoa and lentil stew. Here are a couple of the dishes we have made, one with a young courgette from the garden, and another with some of our lovely tomatoes served with scrambled eggs on toast.

Brocante-ing

I realise that some of you probably are not that into the brocante-ing (flea market, antiquing...) thing, but I think that I have just found something that I LOVE, and had to share.  There are many specific blogs out there on this subject - if you are interested let me know - here is just my point of view on the subject.

This past weekend we went to 2 different brocantes.  We were actually motivated to go because our gardener (I use this term loosely, our home used to be a vacation home and he was the caretaker/gardener and still helps us out often with different things, like lawn mower repair) and friend was running the saucisse and frites stand and told us he'd slip us some free fries if we stopped by.  And so, not being the type of people to say no to a free lunch, we went.

I have been wanting to go to the brocante now for a long time.  I have already been to a few, but was never prepared.  Never had cash to buy anything and was either super pregnant, or tired from work all week.  Lets just say that I loved it.  From the kids getting pony rides, to all the stuff people were selling, it was tons of fun.  A lot of it was junk.  Old cassette players, telephones, really really used clothes...  But there were a few gems...

I came back with three items.  One pair of never worn sandals for Miss Lily for next year, that I bought for 2 euros.  One little cupboard with the key(!) and glass doors that used to be used to keep one's jam until it was eaten.  (This item is going to be used as a jewelry holder for me).  And...  the cutest little Frenchie school desk for Miss Lily.  Someone, at some point, put a piece of lineolum over the top of the desk, but peeled back it looks great.  So I have to sand it all down, oil it up I think as the wood looks and feels really dry, and then seal it.  And then put it in my office so that we both can 'work' at the same time.  It is too dark to get any good photos at the moment, but I will take some asap and add them in.  Anyone want to venture a guess as to how much I spent?  We can play a game in the comments, I'll answer all guesses with 'more' or 'less' and the winner gets a prize...?

I do feel like this is going along with my goals of consuming less.  I am not buying anything new, just reusing things that others don't want anymore.  And it is way more fun than going to the store, you have to look for the treasure amid all the junk.

(Oh, and wearing your cowboy boots leads to interesting experiences.  I got invited by 2 old men to the local, and new, Line Dancing club.  And anything horse-related was pointed out to me by the sellers...  Next time I may wear sandals, but tromping around in those fields, my boots were sure nice!)

'Tis the season to be foraging...

You may remember that one of my goals on the self-sufficiency checklist was to start foraging for some of my food, as you can't get any cheaper than free.  So far this has proved rather difficult, for though we live in the countryside, this part of France is a very tame countryside, patchworked with farmers' fields that have been there for generations, and which either have lost or never had the bounteous English institution known as the 'hedgerow' (hm, will have to research this...).  This past week, however, while walking the dogs, I did find some hazelnuts that had fallen from a tree by the side of the road and filled my pockets.

The French also have a very strange idea of managing their national forests (or at least around our area), as it appears to include regularly chopping them down section by section, rather than the thinning and maintaining-type policies which actually preserve the ancient forest ecosystems.  As a result, the only thing that can be found on the forest floor is brambles, and these amid distressingly uniform rows of young trees being farmed up for the next cull.  This also means we lose out on quite a few varieties of mushrooms which are typically found near venerable old trees, living in symbiosis with them for hundreds of years (such as the chanterelle).  We do, however and most fortunately, still get the 'king' of mushrooms, the cep (porcini).

Now I was never a big mushroom fan growing up, as my experience of the multitudinous fungus kingdom was limited to shop-bought, bland button mushrooms, that even in the most delicious of recipes to me just seemed like eating a sponge.  Living in France, however, I began to notice and appreciate quite a few other varieties, but I still rarely cooked with them, in part because they bear a hefty cost in the supermarkets.  This all changed last fall when my neighbor Richard introduced us to a few easily-identifiable mushrooms that were simply there for the taking in the nearby forest where we were already taking the dogs every couple of days.  Most unfortunately, this was at the very tail end of the mushroom season, and our newborn mycophilia was abruptly quelled with the arrival of winter's frost, having only seen us enjoy a sparse handful of ceps.

It may have only been a short couple of weeks, but it was already evident that I was obsessed.  There is something about mushroom hunting that must invoke the most primal aspects of our being, unlocking that inner hunter-gatherer who scans her terrain with hawk-like precision and a focus unlike any other and crows with delight as she pounces on her prey (an easy feat in the case of mushrooms, but a thrill nonetheless).  And the pleasure of the hunt is only augmented by the return to the present-day mind, as it races with recipe ideas and calculates how much money was saved or not spent in the making of that meal.

I must add a disclaimer here, however, that foraging for mushrooms is not something to be taken lightly for one's own safety.  The good thing is, however, that two of the best eating mushrooms are unmistakable, and they are the only two I eat without first having Richard check them (and this only after having him ok quite a few).  One is the parasol mushroom, which I will post about as soon as I find one, and the other is the cep and its relatives.  The cep belongs to the Boletus genus, which is extremely easy to recognize due to its distinctive shape and the foam-like tubes on the underside of the cap (instead of gills).  The cep is the tastiest, but many of the other boletes are great to eat as well, with the only worry being you might come across one that is very bitter.

One upside to this cool and wet August is that the mushroom season has started early.  In the days following the rains we had last week and the week before, each time we took the dogs to the forest I was tingling with excitement, but was disappointed up until a few days ago when the boletes finally began to appear.  We have an advantage over some of the other mushroom hunters in that we tend to go very off the beaten path in following the dogs, and we have found a great secret place for some lovely boletes.  I hadn't seen any quite like these before, with the very orange caps, so I only picked three and had Richard give me the thumbs up first.

Here is a close-up of the sponge-like tubes on the underside of the cap.

We simply cut these up and sautéed them with butter and thyme and served them on the side of a tomato and mozzarella salad, absolutely delicious (when they are young and the 'foam' is white you can eat it, but once it has gone yellowy, you remove it and only eat the flesh of the cap and the peeled stem).  Then we returned to our spot a few days later and got quite a haul.

The short ones with the fat stems are true ceps and the rest are other boletes.  Unfortunately the latter were a little past it at this point, and we had to throw a couple out and trim the others pretty severely, but we still had plenty to make a dish that I had seen on the River Cottage Mushroom Magic DVD and been wanting to try, cep lasagna, which I will tell you all about in the next post!

From Rocky Mountains to Mountains of Marrows

Well we are back from a wonderful vacation in the US hiking, horseback riding and whitewater rafting in the Rocky Mountains with my family, and though it is always sad to see a great vacation come to an end, I was very happy in the knowledge that I wasn't returning to the normal daily grind but rather my garden and the dogs and cooking and, oh yeah some work too.

Our neighbor had kept the garden properly hydrated during our absence, but the weeds and insects have come out in full force while we were gone, so I've got my work cut out for me to get things back in shape.  The tomatoes are just starting to ripen - we've been sneaking a few cherry tomatoes off the vine - and the borage is now over two feet tall and starting to flower, but the most impressive discovery in the garden upon our return was by far the three enormous marrows (zucchini/courgettes left to turn into actual squash with fully developed seeds) which we have been practically living off of since our return.

 

(this is not a small table...)

The first of several recipes we've done with these gargantuan veggies is a marrow and lentil soup which fed us to stuffed for 4 meals (which works out to about 50 cents a meal! talk about living on the cheap!), accompanied by some homemade semi-whole rolls.

Marrow and 3 Lentil Soup

A whole lot of zucchini/courgette/marrow (enough to fill half to 2/3 a big pot when chopped - this still only used about 2/3 of one of these big guys!)

1 large or 2 small onions

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp ground coriander seed

Fresh rosemary, thyme and sage

1 cup red lentils

1 cup beluga lentils

1.5-2 cups green lentils (or you can just use one kind of lentils)

~2 L chicken stock

If you are indeed using a large marrow, start by cutting it in half lengthwise and removing the seeds, then dice it up into cubes.  Chop the onion and the garlic and start these cooking in some olive oil and butter in a large pot.  Add a teaspoon or so of ground coriander, salt and pepper.  Strip the thyme and rosemary from the stalks and chop it up with the sage leaves and add half of this herb mixture to the cooking onions and garlic, setting aside the rest to add at the end.  Add the diced marrow to the pot, enough to fill it 1/2 - 2/3 the way full, and season with salt and pepper as well as adding a couple of knobs of butter so they glisten a little as you stir them around.  Once they look like they are starting to cook through, rinse your lentils and add them to the pot, stirring them around a bit before adding your chicken stock (enough to cover everything plus an inch or so more).  Cover and leave to simmer until the lentils are tender.  Add the remaining fresh herbs and reduce if need be (it can be pretty watery, as the lentils will thicken it up considerably once whizzed up), and taste to see if the seasoning needs to be adjusted (either go heavy on the salt now, or add salt to taste after you've blitzed the lentils). 

Now for the turning into actual soup and not stew, we ladled out about half of it into a large food processor then actually put the rest aside as it was to save for the next night, which worked quite well.  The second night we then blitzed the rest and then heated it back up, also adding cream since we had been to the grocery store by that time to remedy the empty fridge.  Serve with some warm crusty bread if possible - I had made a dozen rolls (putting half in the freezer) using T80 'farine bise' (semi-whole wheat), which went great with the soup.

Radish Green Falafel with Radish Raita

A while back when I posted about harvesting my first radishes, I lamented the fact that it seemed like a lot of plant going to waste in the greens, which in turn sparked a discussion on radish greens recipes like soup, etc.  Last week (taken me awhile to post so hopefully I remember everything that went in to it!), I pulled up quite a few radishes that should have been pulled up earlier actually, as they had gotten rather woody and the greens had turned positively bush-like.  The radishes weren't that nice for just a salad, so I got a little creative and came up with this recipe!

Radish Green Falafel

Two colanders full of radish greens

1 cup wheat (see this post for explanation)

1 small can chickpeas

1 small can white beans

Mixed falafel spices (coriander, cumin, allspice, cloves, chilli powder, mahleb)

Olive oil

3 cloves garlic

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Fresh mint leaves (a good several)

Salt & pepper

Bread crumbs

Remove the tops of the radishes and set the radishes aside for the raita.  Fill the (clean) kitchen sink with water and wash all the tops very well.  Take each stalk out of the sink at a time and pick the nicest leaves off of it (no yellowing ones or ones that insects may have munched on) and place in a colander for a final rinse (yes, this kind of took forever, but it was worth it).  While you are doing this, bring a very big pot of water to boil (the biggest you have probably) with salt in it.  When it boils, add the wheat and let it cook till nearly done, then add the radish greens in, handfuls at a time if need be, if your biggest pot isn't actually that big.  Cook those for just a few minutes until they've wilted down, then drain it all off back into the colander and leave to cool. 

In a large food processor, whiz up the cans of chickpeas and white beans with the peeled and roughly chopped cloves of garlic, a generous amount of the spices and some olive oil.  Add the salt and pepper, lemon juice and fresh mint leaves and zap around a few times, then start adding bunches of the wheat and radish green mix until it is all mixed in (or until the consistency of the mixture seems right).  Finally mix in a good handful of bread crumbs.

Heat up a pan (we used a wok) with about an inch of good frying oil (sunflower, etc).  While the oil is getting hot, put some more bread crumbs in a shallow bowl or plate and start making falafel balls, working more bread crumbs into them as needed so they stay together and rolling them to coat them with the bread crumbs.  Drop them in the hot oil and roll them around every so often so they cook evenly, then remove to a plate with paper towels to absorb the excess grease.

Serve with raita (Henry did the frying while I made this, otherwise do the raita first) and a tomato and feta salad (topped with the extra crispy bits from frying the falafel), or you could actually put it all together in a wrap with some veggies like a normal falafel.

 

 

Radish Raita

This is a good tricky way to use overly mature radishes, as you use a fine grater to grate them, which removes the fibrous-ness and just leaves a juicy pulp.  So grate several radishes into a bowl, then add 1-2 pots of plain yogurt (Greek-style yogurt is really nice), the juice of a lemon, chopped mint leaves, salt, pepper, and I usually add just a 1/2 a teaspoon of tandoori spice to give a little extra depth of flavor.

We only fried 4-5 falafel each, which was plenty for a very filling meal, then put the rest of the mixture from the processor in a tupperware in the fridge overnight.  The next day we actually baked them in the oven on a cooking tray with a drizzle of olive oil over them and some bacon, which turned out really well, too.  They were a bit denser, however, and I think I preferred them fried.  It ended up lasting us a good three meals and lunch for me, which is quite a bargain considering the cheap ingredients!

Quick Veggie Lasagna

Last night for dinner I made one of my favorite things - not actually a specific dish, but one of my famous, let's-see-what-we-can-make-from-these-leftovers creations.  I think this is a skill I inherited from my mom, as it was a running joke in the family that if we were eating something new, we would ask, "can we ever have this again?", as most of the time it was just something she threw together with whatever was hanging around in the fridge.  Life as a student solidified this genetic tendency for me, with many a night of "ok, I've got, um, raisins, a carrot, some leftover ham...what on earth can I make?"  I think I have yet to have something turn out truly disgusting (though there is always time), and most of the time it is a great new recipe, and it is actually immensely helpful to record it here on the blog so that I now can answer, "Yes, we can have this again!"

For the two nights previous we had been eating lentil stew, and we had just a little bit left - not even quite enough for a whole serving for lunch for me.  I didn't want to waste it, so I decided I would turn it into lasagna - quite a stretch, I know! - for dinner.  I added a can of whole peeled tomatoes to the leftover lentils, as well as a couple more carrots finely sliced and let that cook into the tomato sauce base for the lasagna.  It was a bit too close to when Henry would be getting home to have time to make a bechamel sauce, so I did a little cheaty cheesy sauce by adding some crème légère to two large spoonfuls of St Moret (cream cheese), as well as a twist of S&P. 

In the fridge we also had some courgettes, a handful of shredded Emmental cheese and some parmigiano reggiano, so I finely sliced one of the courgettes and started with a layer of that in a buttered rectangular Pyrex dish, followed by a few spoonfuls of the lentil tomato sauce, a layer of the dried lasagna pasta we had in the cupboard, then the cheesy sauce spread over that, and repeated until I ran out of ingredients.  I stuck the shredded cheese somewhere in the middle as I was building it, and topped it with grated parmesan then cooked it in the oven for I think around 30-40 minutes at 180°C (400°F).  (If it is quite thick, cover it with foil for the first 15-20 minutes, then remove to brown on top.)

It was really delicious, and took about half the time and effort it normally takes to make a lasagna.  The cream cheese sauce also funnily enough turned into something remarkably like ricotta cheese, so it is a great quick cheat for making lasagna!