Zuska Darling
(?)Community Member
Dapper Ladykiller
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- Posted: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 21:19:55 +0000
For Christmas this year, I got a lasagna/casserole dish. And I thought, what better way to christen a baking dish than a lasagna? So I invited over one of my best baking friends to make dinner together. Catch? She's vegan.
NOTE: I am not vegan, and I neither condemn nor condone the lifestyle. However, I'm cheap and reasonably health conscious, so a lot of my cooking is already vegan-ish.
I don't care for strictly following recipes, so we did a quick bit of brainstorming for inspiration.
After digging through my fridge and a quick trip to get nutritional yeast (which I find delicious) we started.
While the water was boiling for the noodles I took one block of tofu and pressed it between two towels just for about thirty minutes. I then crumbled it into a bowl with maybe a cup of daiya cheese for melty indulgence, added a whole block of thawed frozen spinach, and spiced the ever living hell out of it. Parsely, basil, oregano, adobo, salt, pepper, garlic, nutritional yeast, onion was my base. Then on the stove I sauteed onions and mushrooms in an herbed olive oil with more garlic and salt/pepper for another filling. I'll admit- I used jarred pasta sauce. I am not a huge fan of red sauce, so I don't spend the time on it. So I added a little sauce to the bottom of my dish. layered noodles, tofu-ricotta-spinach, fresh chopped tomatoes, mushroom and onion, sauce, and more noodles over and over again. Topped with more daiya and nutritional yeast, and baked at 350 for about 30 min.
This is literally one of the best lasagnas I've ever made. Does it taste healthy? Yeah, it tastes like low-fat ricotta. But no one who I served it to afterwards picked out "tofu" so I feel like I accomplished my goal. Next time I think I'll try with whole wheat noodles. doubling the mushrooms (because they were SO GOOD) and halving the daiya in the cheese mix. I think it looked nicer as it's own ingredient ^^
NOTE: I am not vegan, and I neither condemn nor condone the lifestyle. However, I'm cheap and reasonably health conscious, so a lot of my cooking is already vegan-ish.
I don't care for strictly following recipes, so we did a quick bit of brainstorming for inspiration.
After digging through my fridge and a quick trip to get nutritional yeast (which I find delicious) we started.
While the water was boiling for the noodles I took one block of tofu and pressed it between two towels just for about thirty minutes. I then crumbled it into a bowl with maybe a cup of daiya cheese for melty indulgence, added a whole block of thawed frozen spinach, and spiced the ever living hell out of it. Parsely, basil, oregano, adobo, salt, pepper, garlic, nutritional yeast, onion was my base. Then on the stove I sauteed onions and mushrooms in an herbed olive oil with more garlic and salt/pepper for another filling. I'll admit- I used jarred pasta sauce. I am not a huge fan of red sauce, so I don't spend the time on it. So I added a little sauce to the bottom of my dish. layered noodles, tofu-ricotta-spinach, fresh chopped tomatoes, mushroom and onion, sauce, and more noodles over and over again. Topped with more daiya and nutritional yeast, and baked at 350 for about 30 min.
This is literally one of the best lasagnas I've ever made. Does it taste healthy? Yeah, it tastes like low-fat ricotta. But no one who I served it to afterwards picked out "tofu" so I feel like I accomplished my goal. Next time I think I'll try with whole wheat noodles. doubling the mushrooms (because they were SO GOOD) and halving the daiya in the cheese mix. I think it looked nicer as it's own ingredient ^^