Kevin's Vegetarian Lasagna

I encountered an interesting challenge for the next 40 days. My sister decided to give up consuming meat for lent which presented me with the interesting challenge of making vegetarian food. I typically don't make vegetarian dishes as my family likes meat and fish. We occasionally cook vegetarian dishes when one of our family friends comes over because that's all they eat ! My mom wanted to make lasagna this week so we could heat it up sometime during the week and not have to worry about making anything fancy for dinner. I knew my sister couldn't eat the lasagna we were going to have so I decided to be a nice brother and make her a vegetarian lasagna.

Lasagna is a great dish with loads of flavour but it is a lot of prep work! 

Kevin's Vegetarian Lasagna

Here is the recipe for my vegetarian lasagna:
2 boxes of Olivieri premade lasagna sheets
1 medium sized can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes ( DEPENDS ON HOW BIG YOUR LASAGNA IS)
1 onion
4-6 cloves of crushed garlic
6 Basil leaves 
1 small case of button mushrooms 
1 large eggplant
6 broiled sweet peppers
Pre washed box of kale, chard, and spinach
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
6 eggs
1 container of ricotta cheese
1 container of cottage cheese 
1 Bag of broccolini (FROM COSTCO)

Tomato Sauce
1. Dice 1 whole onion and crush 6 garlic cloves.
2. Heat a sauce pan on high heat and add olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan
3.  When the oil starts to smoke add in your chopped onions and garlic cloves, stir occasionally
4. When onions become caramelized add in the crushed tomatoes. Stir in about half a cup of red wine (TIP: If you are cooking for kids do not worry, adding wine to this sauce will NOT get your child drunk! The alcohol will be cooked out of the sauce)
5. Simmer for 20 minutes stir occasionally to ensure the onions don't burn on the bottom of the pan! After the sauce is done cooking add in your basil leaves! 

Then set the sauce on the side.

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Vegetable Mixture

Broiled Sweet Peppers

1.  wash the peppers, slice in half, remove the seeds and place the peppers with the skin facing up. 

2. Drizzle the peppers with olive oil and season with salt and pepper 
3. Broil for about 20 minutes on high right below the broiler. Check the peppers on occasion to ensure all the peppers are being broiled evenly. When the majority of the pepper skins are charred you may remove them and place them in a sauce pan and cover it. This will make it easier to peel the skins off later on when they cool.
4. When the peppers have cooled remove all of the skin and dice the peppers into small thumbprint sized cubes. 

BROILED SWEET PEPPPERS DONE

Sauteed Mushrooms
1. Slice the button mushrooms lengthwise 
2. In a heated sautee pan, add in some olive oil to coat the pan. When the oil begins to smoke add in your sliced mushrooms. 
3. Stir the mushrooms often and ensure they are browning. This might take a while. First the mushrooms should release a majority of its water content, the liquid will evaporate, and then add in a drizzle of red wine to help remove the fond (brown bits) off the bottom of the pan and to impart more flavour onto the mushrooms. You can add some dried thyme as well.
4. When the wine has reduced you can now season the mushrooms with salt and pepper. Pour the mushrooms into a bowl.

SAUTEED MUSHROOMS DONE

Roasted Eggplant
1. Dice your large eggplant into cubes. 
2. In a heated non stick sautee pan add some olive oil. When it is just begins to smoke add in your diced eggplant. Sautee it until the water has been released from the eggplant and the eggplant cubes are nice and squishy! Ok fine that may not be the proper culinarial term however the cubes should have some nice browning on it and it should be wrinkled. BOOM. When you get to that point you can now season with salt and pepper! TIP: You can be alittle risky and adventurous and add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to it to give a nice tangy.

ROASTED EGGPLANT DONE

 BROCCOLINI - It's basically broccolli but it has longer stems and smaller florets
1. Wash the broccolini
2. Cut the broccolnii into quarters
3. In heated sautee pan add some sliced garlic and wait till it turns a nice light brown colour. Then add in your broccolini. 
4. Drizzle in some white wine and cover for 3-5 minutes until the broccolini turns a nice BRIGHT rich green colour. The broccolini won't fully be cooked at this point but that's the point. You want to help it in the cooking process. If you add it to your lasagna raw it might not become tender. 
5. Remove the broccolini and place it in a bowl.

BROCCOLINI DONE 

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Place all of your cooked vegetables into a bowl and add in your kale, chard, and spinach mixture. Add in your smoked paprika and combine into the mixture. 

In a separate bowl add in your 6 eggs and mix in about 4 tablespoons of cottage cheese. 

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ASSEMBLING THE LASAGNA

On the bottom of a deep casserole dish spread some tomato sauce all over the bottom of the pan. Then place 1-2 pasta sheets on the bottom of the pan. You don't want the two sheets to layer each other but placed just snuggly beside each other. On this first layer add some of the cottage cheese/egg mixture all over the bottom of the dish. Then place your pasta, then add in your vegetable mixture on the second layer. SPREAD IT OUT! There should be a nice layer of vegetables all over. Pour some sauce ontop of the veg. Add your pasta sheet. Then add your cottage cheese mixture then place your pasta sheets on top and add some tomato sauce and cook in the oven for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes is up take it out and place some shredded mozzarella cheese all over it. It should be nice and gooey!  Place it under the broiler for 5-7 minutes until the top has nicely browned! 

Serve immediately!    

 This may seem like a lot of work but in the end it is well worth it! BON APPETIT! 


KMW