Lasagna Rollups Recipe + Holiday Gifts

The family bash was great. Had loads of fun being surrounded by my gigantic family. They are such a happy bunch. I brought a Lasagna casserole to the party which got eaten up by lots of folks. I think there were only 2 rollups left at the end! This recipe was a last minute idea. I was originally going to make a shepherd's pie but thought better of it and made this instead.





Lasagna Rollups

1 box of lasagna noodles
Filling:
1 recipe of Cashew Ricotta (recipe from Veganomicon but you can find it online here.)
1 10oz. box frozen spinach, thawed and drained of all water
2 TB olive oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6-7 mushrooms, chopped
Sauce: (you can used jarred sauce if you want!)
2 TB olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 8oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp italian herbs (or just oregano)
1/2 to 1 cup plain unsweetened soymilk (optional)
vegan parmesan (optional)

1. Make filling: Prepare the cashew ricotta. Defrost spinach in microwave and squeeze out all the water from the spinach. Mix spinach with the cashew ricotta and set aside. Heat the 2 TB of olive oil in a saucepan and saute the red peppers, onion, garlic and mushrooms until soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add this mixture to the ricotta/spinach mixture and combine well. Place this mixture in the fridge while you prepare the lasagna noodles and sauce.
2. Prepare lasagna noodles al dente according to package directions. While they are cooking, prepare sauce. (If you want to use jarred pasta sauce, you may do so.) Heat the 2 TB of olive oil in a pot. Add the onion and garlic and saute until soft. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar and herbs. Bring to a boil then simmer on low. Add about 1/2 to 1 cup of soymilk to make it a creamy tomato sauce if you want. Otherwise leave it out and keep the sauce as is. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
3. Spoon some of the sauce into the bottom of a baking dish and set it aside.
4. Roll 'em up: Take the ricotta filling out of the fridge. Take a sheet of aluminum foil and lay it flat on a table or counter. Spray with some oil. When lasagna noodles are done, drain them and lay them flat on the foil. Spread about 2 TB of filling along each noodle. Roll up and place them seam side down in the baking dish side by side. Cover the whole thing with sauce. Cover with a sheet of foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with vegan parmesan and bake for another 5 minutes.

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I got some great cooking related gifts! Took pics to show you.


Let's say it all together: "OMG!" I've always wanted one of these. Pancake puffs here I come!


Three great looking cookbooks that I can't wait to cook out of!


And my non-cooking related gifts only because I'm so flippin' happy that I got them! TV on DVD is the best.


Some good reads.

Not pictured: a beautiful vintage purse, chocolates, pretty washcloths and other great things...

VeganMoFo: Cheezy Lasagna and Pumpkin Rice Pudding

I absolutely love this easy lasagna recipe. It was one of the first vegan lasagnas that I tried when I first went vegan. I love the fact that you can add pretty much anything to it and it comes out right. Today I had a ton of zucchini so I put them in there along with carrots and spinach. Tofutti cream cheese comes to the rescue here to give you a really creamy "cheesy' ricotta-like filling. I sprinkled a little 'Parmezano Sprinkles' over the top. I love that stuff. I also made another pumpkin themed dessert: Pumpkin raisin rice pudding. Super easy and best when eaten cold. Recipe at the end of this post.






Pumpkin Raisin Rice Pudding

2 C white rice, cooked
2/3 C pure pumpkin (the canned variety will work here)
1-1/4 C soymilk
1/2 C sugar
3/4 C raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla

Whisk pumpkin and soymilk together. Put the pumpkin/soymilk mixture, rice, sugar and raisins in a saucepan. Heat on medium-low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occassionally. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla and let simmer for 15-20 minutes more until thick and creamy.

Sharing at family gatherings.

Went to a family shindig yesterday (to celebrate 2 birthdays) and it was a great opportunity for me to bring a dish to share. I usually freak out a little when something like this comes up because I want to impress them with my vegan cooking skills and show them that I still eat great tasting food with lots of flavor and variety. I also didn't want to scare them away with 'weird' ingredients (like tempeh or any kind of fake meat) so I decided on a vegetable lasagna. Something familiar and comforting yet a little different from the usual. This one had a creamy white sauce instead of the usual marinara. To put this together, I used two compenents of two different lasagna recipes. I took the spinach white sauce preparation from the Florentine Lasagna in 'The Vegan Family Cookbook' and the creamy herbed tofu and soy cream cheese filling from the Cheesy Lasagna recipe over at vegweb. I thought it was ok for me to use tofu in this dish (which to some people is still weird) since it was going to be hiding inside the layers of lasagna.


Some of the ingredients. Cremini mushrooms, zucchini and carrots, tofu and soy cream cheese for the filling. Onions, garlic and a bag of spinach for the white sauce.

This is what the filling looked like as it bubbled away. See, you can't see the tofu!


After boiling the noodles and making the spinach white sauce (forgot to get a photo of this), it was just a matter of layering it all together. I had this idea to peel thin slices of zucchini to decorate the top. I think it worked well.


Before going into the oven...


And just out of the oven. How beautiful it looks in the dappled sunlight!


I also made Thai coleslaw which was really good except probably not that great as a potluck dish. Because it was sitting out most of the day, it got warm and wilty and lost it's crispness.

So the verdict? Everyone loved the lasagna and I was happy to see pieces missing as the day turned into night. The coleslaw, not so much but that's ok. The cookie dough brownies I made were a hit with the kids.