Roasted Vegetable Lasagne – VeganMoFo Day 4

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is all about the worst catered meal you’ve ever had.  When you’re vegan, often it seems that chefs just go “umm?” and throw a vegetable at a plate. In general, I prefer to eat out at places that specify vegan options – or even better, vegan only places – but that’s not always possible. Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it.

I can’t seem to find a picture of what, in my opinion, was the worst catered meal I’ve had, but I’ll describe it to you. As you may have gathered from the title of this post, it was a lasagne. Lasagnes are usually great, right? Pasta with a nice creamy sauce…mmm. Except this lasagne had no pasta. In place of pasta, it had sheets of celeriac. I really don’t like celery, or celeriac and, yeah, it wasn’t ideal.

So, I decided to make my own version. A better version. I kept with the theme of vegetables – including lots of vegetables roasted for this lasagne, but used actual pasta, and a version of my cheese sauce to go with it. As you can probably tell, I didn’t have the best luck with the photos for this post – the light was dark (oh, autumn…) and lasagne unfortunately just isn’t that pretty. It was tasty, though!

The roasted veggies that go inside are pretty good looking though, don’t you think? I had a hard time not just eating them fresh out of the oven. They get roasted first, then cooked into a tomatoey sauce, which is used as the lasagne sauce. Then, you make the cheese sauce, arrange it all in a pan, and bake it in the oven!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne

• Servings: Makes
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Ingredients

For the vegetable sauce
• 1 red onion
• 1 white onion
• 2 large courgettes
• 2 peppers (whichever colour you like!)
• 250g cherry or baby plum tomatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• Salt + Pepper
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 250ml vegetable stock
For the cheese sauce
• 1 pack (350g) silken tofu
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp oil
• 350ml vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 40g cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1 tsp salt

Also

• 1 box lasagne sheets

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Begin by chopping all your vegetables (up to and including the cherry tomatoes) into bitesize pieces. Don’t worry too much about making them even – just make sure they’re roughly similar sizes.
2. Place the vegetables on baking sheets (you’ll probably need two) and mix through the oregano, thyme, salt and pepper, and olive oil.
3. Put the baking trays in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, stirring midway through, until all the vegetables are cooked. Leave the oven on.
4. Once the vegetables are cooked, add them to a saucepan along with the 250ml stock, the tomato puree, and the chopped tomato tin. Stir, and heat through gently.
5. Next, make the cheese sauce. In a saucepan, fry the minced garlic until it just starts to brown – keep an eye on it as it happens quickly!
6. Remove from the heat, and add the remaining ingredients.
7. Using either a stick blender, or a countertop blender, blend until smooth.
8. Place the saucepan back on a low heat, and whisk until the sauce starts to thicken.
9. Next, assemble the lasagne. Put a bit of the vegetable sauce on the bottom of your dish, followed by lasagne sheets, followed by cheese sauce. Repeat until you reach the top of your dish – making sure to end with cheese sauce.
10. Place in the oven for 30 minutes, until the lasagne sheets are cooked (you can test this easily with a fork).

Lasagne! – Vegan MoFo Day 14

For day 14 of Vegan MoFo (has it been two weeks already?!) the prompt is to “share something vegan with a non-vegan”.

I may have cheated a little with this one. That’s becoming a common phrase, right? I couldn’t think of who to share with, so I shared with my husband! He is just vegetarian, so not vegan. Of course, he eats vegan every night when I cook…but it still counts, right?

I decided to make lasagne! Lasagne is one of those lovely comforting meals that not only tastes good, but also makes a load of leftovers to keep in the freezer! You can put whatever you like in it really, if you have vegetables to use up they can go in the filling.

I kept this one pretty simple and just did a tomato-y soya mince filling. Layered with pasta and a vegan bechamel sauce, it works out wonderfully!

It goes in the oven like this and comes out all lovely and crispy like the photo at the top!

My husband says he liked it very much, if you’re wondering.

Simple Vegan Lasagne

• Servings: 4+
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Ingredients

for the filling:
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 200g frozen soya mince
• 500ml passata
• 1/2 tsp marmite
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• Salt & Pepper

for the bechamel:

• 2 tbsp vegan butter
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• approx 500ml milk (I used almond milk)
• Lasagne sheets

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/390F
1. First, make the bechamel. In a saucepan melt the butter.
2. Add the flour to the butter and stir on the heat for a minute until it becomes slightly frothy.
3. Gradually add the milk, constantly stirring so no lumps form.
4. Season with salt and pepper, and let cook until a thick sauce is formed. Set aside.
5. In a frying pan, fry the onion, carrot, and garlic until the onion is translucent.
6. Add in the marmite and herbs and mix well.
7. Add the mince and passata and cook for approx 10 minutes, adding more water if it starts to dry out.
8. In your baking dish, spread a small layer of the mince mixture on the bottom. Cover this in lasagne sheets (try not to overlap them).
9. On top of the lasagne sheets, spread a layer of the bechamel, then another layer of the mince.
10. Cover the mince with lasagne sheets and repeat until the mince is used up. Make the final “top” layer be bechamel on top of the pasta.
11. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden on top and the pasta sheets are done (stick a fork in to test).