Tofu Bolognese Lasagna

  Like I have said before, I can't eat dairy (gallbladder).
So, I have been adapting my diet to eat everything but without dairy in it.

For a while now I have been wanting to make a
Tofu bolognese lasagna to see if it turned out good.

It was awesome!

And no, it doesn't taste like ricotta cheese lasagna.
Which by the way, is gross. (Not a ricotta cheese fan).

So if you want to try it, here is the recipe.
Click on the images for full view.

Main Ingredients: (quantities all depend on how much you want to make)

- Silken soft tofu

- Ground beef

- Tomatoes

- Lasagna pasta

- Tomato paste

- Salt, black pepper, olive oil, onion, cumin, garlic and garlic powder, dill seed, thyme, basil and paprika

- Optional: black olives and french onions/crushed potato chips

How to make it:

Making lasagna isn't a mystery. 

Here the only major difference is that instead of cheese, you will use tofu. 

The main secret of tofu is how you season it. 

Tofu is a soy paste that will take on the taste of what you put in it, salt or sugar, so you can make it taste like cheese if you want.

First you need to boil the tomatoes to peel them. Just until the peel cracks and before they cool off.

Use a spoon and a knife to move them around so you don't burn your fingers.

Once you have them all peeled, put it on a food processor or blender and make it a sauce.

Before you cook that sauce, on a casserole, put about 2 table spoons of olive oil, a minced clove of garlic, chopped onion (how much you want) salt and pepper. 

When the garlic and the onion are golden, throw in the tomato you just blended. Cook it until the water evaporates and you have a thicker paste.

 

You will still end up with a runny paste. 

If you like it that way use it like that. 

If you don't like runny sauces, add a can of tomato paste. 

You can add up to 2 cans and make it even more paste like. 

Some people hate runny tomato sauce, so that depends on your taste.

Separate that sauce.

To prepare the tofu, the first thing you should do is steam it. 

You can use whatever you want. 

I use a pan with boiling water and set it on top of that for 5 minutes.

Then, thrown in a bowl and with a mixer, beat it up until it looks like curd cheese, so it isn't way to creamy. 

Add the following ingredients:

 - 1 table spoon of  garlic powder
- 1 pinch of dill seed
- 1/2 tea spoon of black pepper
- 1 pinch of thyme
- 1 pinch of basil
- 1 pinch of cumin
- 2 pinches of paprika

- salt (I use one table spoon)

Mix it all with a spoon so the mixer doesn't make it look like cream cheese and separate.

Now that you have the tomato sauce and the tofu ready, you need to cook the ground beef.

The quantity depends of how big the lasagna is and also how meaty you want it.

I hate those lasagnas that have a lot of pasta and almost no meat, which is why I do the opposite.

That way you end up with a meaty lasagna that has more proteins than carbs.

To cook it (the way I like it), more fried than boiled looking, all you need to do is add olive oil to a pan, salt and pepper, onions and minced garlic. 

The quantities depend on how seasoned you want it. 

Throw in the meat in once the garlic and the onion are gold, then fry it until it is very well cooked and the meat looks goldish.

I like adding black olives to the meat. 

Mince them and throw it in when the meat is ready.

Then, cook it for another minute.

When the meat is done, mix it with the tomato sauce you made.

Now you need to build the layers.

You can use whatever lasagna pasta you like. 

Like I said before, I like meaty lasagna, so my layers of meat are thick.

On a Pyrex plate, put 2 table spoons of olive oil and make sure the whole bottom of the plate has it.

Then add the first layer with pasta, then meat, than tofu, until you get to the top of the plate and end up with meat.

 Because this lasagna doesn't have cheese, the last and top layer is only meat.

 Now you only need to put it in a pre heated oven for about 30 minutes and voila!

To serve it you can add some french fried onions to the top, or crushed potato chips.

The thing you see on the side there is palmito (heart of palm).

 

 

 That's it!
Enjoy!

 

Listening to: Tori Amos - Crucify
 Reading: George R. R. Martin - Game of Thrones 
Playing: World of Warcraft 
Watching: True Blood + Vampire Diaries + Game of Thrones 

+ Buffy + Angel + Friends + Ringer
Eating: Lasagna
 Drinking: soy mango juice
 Quote: "A gourmet is a being pleasing to the heavens."
(Charles Pierre Monselet)