Vegan Lasagna (Updated: How it turned out)

I've made some kind of variation before, but I think more vegetarian than vegan.

I had been using an oil combination of grapeseed and olive oil for frying onion and shiitake tempura, and pumpkin seed balls, but it was a mistake to add a little soybean oil to it.  Sort of made things tougher.  However, I had this oil already and wanted to make use of it so I decided to fry my eggplant and zuchinni and onion and mushrooms in it.

1.  I cubed 1 eggplant and 2 zuchinnis, and one yellow onion.  I sauteed the onion first, and then added some of the rest, but took it out and decided to pour the oil over it in a bowl first to transfer evenly and then add in parts to the saucepan.  So I did this, and added salt, whole black peppercorns, and a good chopped up dried oregano (a few tablespoons).  I also diced 1 portabella mushroom.

I would normally use only olive oil for the flavor.  But, making do...I then decided I wanted to temper the oil a little with vinegar and only have cider vinegar and my habanero salsa so I added a throw of cider vinegar (clarified) and then just a small touch of the salsa.

2.  In the meantime, I chopped up 1 cup of fresh basil leaves, and added an 1/8 c. of remaining onion to dice up more finely.  Then I chopped spinach and put these together in a container.

3.  After I fry(lightly)  up the eggplant and zucchini mixture, I will transfer it to a tomato sauce and then let it simmer a little while.  Not really long, because I don't want mush.  Just a minute basically.

4.  Then, I have extra firm tofu and tofutti's "better than sour cream".  They don't have a substitute mozarella cheese at the store (might have to ask for that to be ordered), so I decided to use the better than sour cream for a kind of ricotta to go with the tofu, both of which are in the place of cheese.

It would definitely be best with a vegan mozzarella, but it's not in the stores here, so this is what I'm trying instead.

5.  Will combine the tofu and "sour cream" together with flaxseed "egg" and then add in the freshly chopped basil and spinach and minced onion and then layer all the ingredients over lasanga and bake.

Whatever oil is remaining I will drizzle over the top of the lasanga, over the tofu-sour cream mixture to protect it from burn and give it a better finish.

I don't really know how it will work, but this is what I'm trying from intuition.  For my sauce I'm using more tomato paste than sauce.  Fresh would be great, but don't have time right now. I've always pre-made my lasange noodles too, by boiling them and layering, but I didn't realize I had picked up "oven ready" ones, that you don't boil first.  So we will see how this turns out! 

I definitely think it would be a huge improvement if I could find and use some kind of vegan mozarella substitute.  That would be a really big improvement, and I would typically use only olive oil for the oil as well.  It's tasting okay so far.

I really like fresh basil with just tomato and mozarella but now that I'm vegan I miss the mozarella.  This other cheese I've tried, for "american" cheese, is pretty good, and melts well over rice and beans and things.  It's a tofutti brand.

The reason I am first lightly frying and then putting in sauce and then baking is because I already had oil and needed to use it.  Since I'm not using meat or eggs or cheese, it helps the eggplant to absorb the oils and give it a balance and bring out flavor.  Then I will transfer to paste and water (sauce) to let the flavors blend with the tomato, but don't want it to be mushy since it will be baked, so then reserving for the bake.  That's why I am taking different steps to it.  With the oregano, I want this to seep in while cooking, partly because it's dried.  Then with the basil, that's fresh so I will add that at the end.  I reserved a little minced onion to have a slightly different aspect to the onion flavor, with most of it pre-sauteed with oregano and then a little bit left uncooked with the fresh basil right before bake.  I don't know, it's just my instinct, but someone might have other ideas.

Well I changed my mind. I decided not to simmer the sauteed things in sauce and just mixed it up and will bake.  I mainly don't want it to be mushy.  We'll see.
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Okay, I did a few other things.  I liked the portabella sauteed--it had a good hearty flavor so I added a second one.  Then, for sauce, I had used only 6 oz. of natural paste (no other ingredients) with 12 oz. water, and had added this to the sautee mixture.  It wasn't runny, just coating, and I left it.

When I was ready to layer, I used this at the bottom after oiling bottom with olive oil.  Then noodles, then the "cheese" mixture (with about 1 c. chopped fresh basil, 1 c. spinach, 3/4 pkg extra firm tofu and 1/2 toffuti "better than sour cream" with 2 "eggs" worth flaxseed ground.  I would have used the full pks of toffuti and tofu but I felt like saving a little for something else.  It madefor a thin layer but worked.  Then sauce on that, and noodle layer.  Another "vegan cheese and mixture" layer and then on this, the additional noodles.  Next, one more layer of the sauteed veggies and they just sat on top of the noodles and I needed to cover it better so I mixed 1 more 6 oz. paste in a bowl with 6 oz. water, stirred, and poured over the top and it filled it up perfectly and was bright red.  I didn't put anything over this and covered with foil.  Then I baked at 425 degrees for 60 minutes. 

It turned out much better than I expected.  The main seasonings I needed later, was s&p.  My Dad had set them out, like he knew.  He also had the exact number of tomato slices out for how many drips ended up in the onion from a little bit of sauce simmering over.

The zucchini was perfect, because it was still crisp and crunchy but cooked.  The eggplant had been saturated and was cooked and held flavor too.  Overall, it's a really good vegan lasanga.  As for oil, I used approx. 12 oz. oil to sautee everything.  By the time I was done sauteeing in parts, there was no oil leftover as the eggplant absorbed most of it.  It doesn't taste greasy at all but I think a touch of vinegar helped.