Monday 15 April 2013

Vegan Veggie Lasagne!


This lasagne is the freshest, most bountiful “pasta dish” you will ever see.
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Feast your eyes :)
I think I’d only need to tell you once to go make it. This pile of life just speaks for itself.
I thought I was going to have to attempt this a couple times before achieving perfection, but I think my first attempt turned out pretty darn good! This proves how forgiving unrefined food is, even for the people with the wackiest ideas :P
Don’t get intimidated by the layers. It’s so simple. I literally made the dish in less than 20 minutes, minus the time required to steam the sweet potato. No baking and boiling noodles here!
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On that note, I confess that this recipe isn’t 100% raw, but it is still 100% vegan :D
Let’s bring out the ingredients, shall we?
The Most Vibrant Lasagne Ever
Lasagne Sheets
1 eggplant (you won’t use the whole thing)
Sweet Potato Filling
1 medium sweet potato, steamed
5 basil leaves (adjust to your preference)
3 big chunks of coconut (feel free to sub for cashews, but the coconut really give it that kick of milky creamy texture. Simply, I just wanted to get rid of the coconut chunks that have been sitting in my fridge for a while)
2 handfuls pine nuts, raw
1 tbsp. maple syrup/agave (optional; determine by the sweetness of your potato!)
Tomato Sauce
14 cherry tomatoes (mine are weirdly large cherry tomatoes, so use more if your tomatoes are small; you can’t have too much sauce anyway ;) )
4 generous chunks of coconut 
2 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. dried parsley
Garnish
Fresh Parsley & Basil
To make the egg plant lasagne sheets, simply use a mandoline slicer. If that’s unavailable to you, take out your knife and your cutting board and start slicing thinly! It turns out my mandoline slicer was too ancient and wasn’t able to do the job too well, so I just used the old fashioned slicing method at the end :)
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Don’t worry about the imperfection. This is where the “home-made” label comes along ;)
After those are done, it’s time to make the sweet potato filling! This is what makes this lasagne memorable, so prepare yourself for some epicness :P
For the filling, put all the ingredients (sweet potato, basil, coconut, pine nuts, sweetener) into your food processor and turn it on! When it becomes a paste, you are golden
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Put this paste into a bowl (make sure to scrape it as clean as you can!); then it’s the tomato sauce’s time to shine!
For the tomato sauce,
Put all your ingredients (tomatoes, coconut, herbs) into your unclean food processor and turn it on once again! It’s complicated, I know. If you don’t mind it tasting just a bit on the raw side, you can definitely skip the step of heating up your tomato sauce; but just by heating it a little bit on the stove top really brings out the flavours of the sauce. I cheated a little and heated it up ;)
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Once your amazing sauce is finished, it’s time to assemble! :)
The assembling is always the best part (well, apart from eating it of course)
You know the drill; I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve seen Grandma make this dish ;)
The sweet potato paste reallyyyy reminds me of the sea urchin you get from sushi places…
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First the lasagne “noodles”…
Then the sweet potato paste…
Then the sauce…
Then the “noodles” (part 2)…
Then the sauce (part 2)…
Then the paste (part 2)…
Repeat until you’ve used up all your tomato sauce!
Oh and don’t forget to garnish with your freshly chopped up parsley and basil!
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Your dish would end up like this no matter how you decide to assemble it, I promise:) Living foods have the supernatural ability to radiate beauty and vibrancy (see what I did there? Punny ;) )
adventure with amanda and blog entree 031
Just look at those gorgeous bountiful layers.
Hehe, it was so beautiful I didn’t want to put my fork into it… but eventually, I did :P
Sure beats the ever famous traditional oh-I’m-so-bloated-I-can’t-move lasagne, doesn’t it?
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                           VS
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Which is the winner? ;)


  Lots of Nuts,
-Peanut Crumpet xoxo

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