Lasagna

I've had lasagna on my mind recently. We've got some wedding-related events coming up soon, and I know I needed a dish that could feed both James and myself, but could also be prepared ahead of time for reheating later. So lasagna really made sense. Now, to figure out how to do this without tomatoes!

I've also had my eye on the Soy Sausage recipe in the Cafe Flora Cookbook. So since I had the time and energy for big cooking, I took to the kitchen. The sausage is composed of mainly TVP and crumbled tofu, plus a wonderful concoction of fresh garlic, fresh rosemary (which the neighbors generously donated without their knowledge!), dried sage, thyme, salt, pepper and some crushed red pepper flakes. This mix is pressed into patties, then fried. It's a bit of a labor heavy recipe, and my mixture ended up too wet to form tight solid patties. But they fried up all the same and turned out quite tasty.

For the filling, I combined tofu, garlic, onion and oregano is my handy new stick blender (with chopper attachment - thanks John & Mary!). This is a pretty similar mix to what fills the stuffed shells.

To bring it all together I alternated layers of pre-cooked noodles, tofu spread, a veggie mix composed of spinach, carrots, broccoli and onion and a tad bit of sauce. I topped it off with a generous layer of creamy oniony white sauce (mmmm, I do love that gravy!) and a fine sprinkling of vegan Parmesan topping. I baked it for about 30 minutes.

Verdict: an excellent first attempt, I think. The structure is right, but I know how to improve it. The homemade veggie sausage wasn't quite present enough (though I have 6 patties in the freezer for breakfasts!), so perhaps some crumbled up Trader Joes breakfast patties or meatless meatballs. Also, I tossed the veggies in raw and they didn't soften up enough in cooking, so next time I'll probably saute up some onion, spinach & mushrooms instead. But it was totally yummy, with tons of leftovers.