Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

I'll admit right now that lasagna is my "go to" dish to make when I can't think of anything else. It's easy and makes a ton so there's leftovers the next day. I normally make a simple lasagna with just tofu ricotta because I think I've been scarred by terrible vegetable lasagna in the past where the vegetables were totally undercooked and not seasoned. Roasting vegetables is my favourite easy method so I thought, hey, why not combine the best of both worlds and make the Roasted Vegetable Lasagna (page 216)?

The great thing about lasagna is that you can just throw in whatever you want. Robin suggests zucchini, eggplant and red bell pepper which do go together really well. Our terrible grocery store was of course out of eggplant (I don't think I've ever seen it there) so I opted for a vegetable mixture of onion, garlic, mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini and red pepper. Roasting vegetables is one of the easiest things to do and the flavour is so much better than steamed or sauteed. Just toss or drizzle with oil, salt and pepper and any other herbs & spices that you want and then throw in the oven. Because I can't leave well enough alone, I did sprinkle on some onion and garlic powder and roasted it a little longer than the recipe suggests because I like my vegetables really caramelised.

The tofu ricotta is also simple to make. Just crumble, season and away you go. I ended up using two packages of extra firm Nasoya tofu and added just a spoonful of lemon juice for a bit of acidity to the ricotta along with the parsley, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast.

For the noodles, I chose not to cook them first. For years I used to cook them first but now I just soak the noodles in cold water (don't use hot, it will release the starches and make them stick together) while I'm prepping the other ingredients and then use more sauce than called for. For store bought, I use two large jars — one full jar of sauce at the bottom of the pan and one full jar on the top. The noodles are perfectly cooked during the usual cooking time and it saves me from washing another pot.

For the layering, I opted for a single layer of vegetables and a single layer of tofu ricotta rather than split them both into two layers. For the topping I went with straight nutritional yeast which is usually my standard lasagna topping since I never have vegan parmesan and always forgot to make some.

The finished lasagna was delicious. The roasted vegetables added a great flavour to the entire dish and was so much better than just plain vegetables and the leftovers were even better the next day. Not sure why I didn't think of roasted vegetables in lasagna before but now I think this will be added to my regular rotation.

— Ms. Veganorama

Spaghetti and T-Balls with Marinara Sauce

A vegan take on a classic dish: Spaghetti and T-Balls (page 194) with Marinara Sauce (page 194).

Let's start with the marinara sauce. Super easy to throw together with pantry staples. This recipe is a great base for your tomato sauces and easily customised to your tastes. The better the quality of your crushed tomatoes, the better your sauce will be. I added in lots of chopped garlic (see the chunks up there), diced onions, some red pepper flakes and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I like adding balsamic because it adds a bit of depth to tomato sauces.

The T-Balls were also really easy to throw together. Similar to the Tempeh Tantrum Burgers, everything goes into a food processor and then cooked. The only thing I changed was that I used regular flour instead of vital wheat gluten and they still held together really well. I opted for the baking method but before I threw them in the oven I gave everything a spritz of oil. They baked up perfectly and held together.

The seasonings were just right combined with the sauce in this dish. Tasty but not overpowering. If you are going to use these without a sauce, ramp up the seasonings. These T-Balls would totally be great in sandwiches too. Of course they still taste like tempeh, so if you don't like tempeh, skip these.

This dish was a nice break from the usual "meat" balls that I've made for spaghetti (usually TVP-based) and it was nice to have pasta with a homemade sauce again instead of jarred (I confess I use jarred a lot). If you're looking for a hearty and comforting meal, make this.

— Ms. Veganorama

(Not) Radiatore with Aurora Sauce

I wanted a quick fast dinner with simple ingredients, but the finished dish still had to be delicious. Flipping through the book I decided to make Radiatore with Aurora Sauce (page 196). Clearly that pasta above is not radiatore, but linguine. I didn't have any smallish pasta, but I didn't let that stop me. The sauce, while best with radiatore or even penne, still works great with long pasta.

Pre-vegan I used to make pasta with a tomato cream sauce a lot. Back then I used half & half reduced and mixed with a tomato basil sauce. Really simple but enjoyed by many. Post-vegan, I never really thought to make it again until now.

The sauce came together really quickly. Just aromatics, a large can of crushed tomatoes and herbs. I did add a teaspoon of sugar to cut the acidity because I pretty much always add a spoon of sugar to all my tomato-based sauces. For the cream part I used Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese. There's an option to use silken tofu as well but I wanted a richer taste so I went with the Tofutti. You could also use unsweetened and reduced soy creamer or a thick cashew cream. Really, you just need something creamy and rich. I also took the liberty of throwing in some baby spinach from our CSA share while it was simmering. The dish was tasty with a great balance of tomato with cream. You can't go wrong with a tomato cream sauce. Well, unless you hate tomatoes. And cream. :p

For the ingredients, use the very best crushed tomatoes you can get. The quality of the tomatoes can easily make or break a sauce. I like the imported Italian brand crushed tomatoes which taste far superior to many regular grocery story brands.

This recipe is marked fast and you could have it on the table in 30 minutes or less. Start preparing the sauce when you put your pasta water on the stove. Everything should stop cooking at roughly the same time and you've have a delicious plate of pasta that is a little different than just plain old marinara.

— Ms. Veganorama

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ETA: In less than one month, we've gone through over 100 recipes. Big round of applause to everyone! :)

Caramelized Onion and Walnut Focaccia

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a total carboholic. I savour freshly baked bread like people would savour a fudgey chocolate cake and have been known to down an entire loaf of bread in one sitting (on more than one occasion) with just some sea salt, pepper and good olive oil. As mentioned in a post on my other blog, I haven't purchased bread from a store in a long time. I don't bake desserts but I bake bread a lot. There's just something magical about such simple ingredients coming together to create so many wonderful varieties of bread.

When flipping through the book, I made a beeline for the bread section and the recipe for Caramelized Onion and Walnut Focaccia (page 414) jumped out at me.

If you've never made bread before, focaccia is really easy and somewhat similar in technique to a regular pizza crust recipe. The dough does need to rise for an hour on the first rise and then about 35-40 minutes on the second rise so allot yourself about 2 hours from start to finish. There is minimal prep work involved, just slicing onions and chopping the walnuts, but it does take some time to caramelise the onions to perfection (about 35-40 minutes). Seems like a long time, but trust me, it is definitely worth it. You really don't have to do that much while the onions are cooking. You just need to make sure they don't burn and stir occasionally. You can prep the onions on the first rise and cook on the second, or if you don't want to lose momentum, you can do that all during the first rise. I prefer doing this actually to get it out of the way. While the onions are cooking, you can take that opportunity to flip through the cookbook and plan your next dish!

The focaccia itself is a fairly basic one with no extra ingredients in the dough, but where this dish really shines is the topping. The smell of the onions combined with the thyme while it's cooking will make your house smell as delicious as any bakery café. If that wasn't already delicious enough, the taste and texture of the walnuts worked perfectly with the onion mixture. It baked up in my oven in about 30 minutes (my oven sucks by the way) and filled the house with the smell of baking bread.

The taste of the finished focaccia was soooo good. I sliced it into smaller slices and had it alongside some mashed roasted garlic in olive oil and additional salt and pepper. I actually wished that I didn't have an entire dinner of something else waiting for me because if left to my own devices, I would have just sat there eating slice after slice. On the upside, I have tons of leftovers which I will eat tomorrow, slice after slice, until it's all gone.

— Ms. Veganorama

P.S. The plate was purchased from Jeanette Zeis (Vegan Dish). I get asked about the plate a lot. :)