Thursday 3/26: Many Colors of the Lasagna Rainbow

Whenever he works back-to-back 24 hour shifts, my dad comes to stay the night at my apartment. It's less of a drive, so that way he gets more sleep.

I like to cook when he's in town because it makes me seem more like a well-adjusted grown-up living on my own. There may be nights when dinner is a box of cereal and swigs of soymilk from the carton, but my dad doesn't have to know that.

I'm not sure why, but I had been craving lasagna. I found a really great tofu ricotta recipe a while back and am always looking for an excuse to make it. Plus, now armed with my trusty mandolin, I could add lots of layers of thinly sliced veggies.

Here's the ricotta recipe (a spin off the basic Tofu Ricotta recipe from the Veganomicon). I leave lasagna construction decisions up to you. I used San Giorgio no-boil lasagna noodles and Prego jar sauce (vegan!) for efficiency's sake, I tossed in a layer of mandolined yellow squash, a layer of orange peppers, a layer of the last of the pesto from last Friday and plenty of Galaxy Foods "faux-zerella" cheese.

Tofu Ricotta
(you may want to double this recipe [as I did] for a 9x13 pan of lasagna. The single recipe is enough for a loaf pan)

1 package of Mori-Nu tofu, extra firm
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of cheater garlic
2 or 3 turns of the pepper mill
a dozen or so fresh basil leaves, chopped well (about 1/2 cup or so)
a bunch of fresh parsley, chopped fine (about 1/2 cup or so)
2 teaspoons of olive oil
1/4 cup of nutritional yeast (if you don't have n.y., you can sub bread crumbs or parmesean shake cheese or a combination of all three)

Mush up the tofu with a fork until it's crumbly.
Add lemon juice, garlic, pepper, basil, and parsley. Mush using your hands now so the mixture gets very sticky. It can take up to 5 minutes.
Add the olive oil and mush with a fork because now it will be gooey.
Add the yeast (or breadcrumbs/cheese) and stir it up so everything is evenly distributed.
You can use this right away but it's much easier to handle if you refrigerate at least an hour before putting the lasagna together.

My dad says he wouldn't have known it was vegan if I hadn't told him. Success!