Recipe Round-Up: Veganize It - Anatomy of a lasagne

I am spending a bit more time with Veganize It (by Robin Robertson) for a special post about the most special lasagne that I have ever made. My best friend Ashleigh loves lasagne, and so I knew I had to make this for her. While there are options for store-bought things you can use, I made every single part of this lasagne from scratch. For better or for worse. Let's get started! (You can see my other posts about Veganize It, including the one from last week, here.

Seasoned Tofu Ricotta: This is your basic tofu ricotta - crumbled tofu with a bunch of seasonings. But the blend of seasonings in this one is amazing. It is savoury, cheesy, and yum, my favourite tofu ricotta recipe to date! I used a 350g block of firm (not extra firm) tofu, and it had a great texture.
Rating: :D



Nut Parm: A simple blend of nuts, nutritional yeast, and salt. I used slightly less salt than the recipe called for, which was salty enough for me.
Rating: :)



Melty Vegan Cheese: This is a cashew based cheese that uses tapioca starch to thicken. It was quite gloopy and hard to spread, so perhaps if you are using it for something like this it would be good to pull it off the stove before it gets too thick. But it tastes good!
Rating: :)



Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce: This is amazing. It involves a lot of roma tomatoes, so you will want to make it when roma tomatoes are at their peak season. However, if it is not tomato season, there is also an option for using tinned tomatoes as well. I used 20 roma tomatoes, and got 3.5 cups of sauce (the recipe says it makes 3 cups). This has a beautiful, deep, sweet flavour, and is definitely worth the extra time to make for a really special meal.
Rating: :D



Homemade Pasta: And then... there was the pasta. I haven't made pasta before, I don't have any special pasta making stuff. So this was a learning experiment for me as much as anything. I found I needed to add a bit of extra water to the dough, as it was quite dry, but just moistening my hands when kneading took care of that. To make sheets for the lasagne, I rolled them out with a rolling pin. The dough was quite springy, so it ended up a bit thick. Because I was making the lasagne, I didn't have to cook the pasta in boiling water. They were briefly soaked in some boiling water before assembly.
Rating: :)



Handcrafted Lasagna: And then, there was lasagne. I made a half recipe in an 8 x 8 inch pan. Layers of sauce, noodles, a ricotta/spinach/nut parm mix, ending with the sauce and topped with the melty cheese (I had a bit extra of this, but extra cheese is never a problem) and more nut parm. The pasta was a bit thick in places, but it didn't really matter. It was delicious, and I made it all from scratch and with love. And it was enjoyed!
Rating: :D





The end! Now I have looked at the word lasagne/lasagna so many times, they make no sense. Which one to use? Apparently lasagna is the noodle and lasagne is the plural of that, so it is the dish? But then... I know not. The book spells it lasagna, I spell it lasagne, this word is just getting sillier to look like. I think we can all agree with Garfield and just say that it is yummy.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim would like to remind you that sure, kittens are cute, but she is the cutest. We had some blood work done a couple of weeks ago, which showed that her thyroid meds are not too much so her thyroid is too low, meaning her kidneys had gotten worse. You need your thyroid hormone to keep your kidneys working! So we've decreased her meds (after having to increase them... we are specialising in the teensiest dose adjustments with this little girl), and we'll recheck her bloods in the new year. Then she got another UTI, so she is on antibiotics again. But she is otherwise her happy little self.