Friday, December 12, 2008

Green Lasagna


I wanted to see if lasagna could be made without tomatoes... and without ricotta. This is what I came up with:

First layer: homemade pesto that's been in the freezer for too long, sauteed spinach and red onion with salt
Second layer: firm tofu mashed with extra virgin olive oil, oregano, basil and sea salt and sauteed broccoli, french cut green beans, onion and mushrooms.
Top layer: More sauteed spinach with sweet onion, garlic and salt and a layer of mozzerella.

I liked how this turned out. I was afraid it wouldn't be juicy enough to keep the noodles from getting hard in the oven, but it did fine. The tofu tasted really salty when I was mashing it up, but once it was in the lasagna it didn't have enough flavor. The texture, though, does a good job of approximating ricotta.
I guess this creation would probably gross some people out, but I've been eating it for lunch all week :-)

I think next summer I'd like to try a yellow lasagna and use lemon boy tomatoes and zucchini as the sauce... hmmm.

2 comments:

Matthew Rennels said...

Did you ever eat at Biaggi's in Champaign? Tasha and I absolutely love that place, and we got a meal with pesto, which I have ALWAYS LOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S AWESOME!!!!!

Thank you for the kind words! Tasha is such a Blessing and things are coming together!!!

I hope to see you soon! We're planning to come for Ignite, if not before!!! Take care!!

Matthew Rennels said...

Pesto is AWESOME!!!!!

Also, I found this blog post and thought of you. Ever think about writing freelance food articles? You should!!!

http://therenegadewriter.com/2008/12/17/food-writing-not-all-about-the-food/