I had zero hopes when I popped this in the oven, y'all.
I'd inadvertently let my husband's beautiful homemade pasta dry awkwardly, so it broke as I laid it in the casserole dish, and not all of it was fully covered by the sauce due to the lack of it, and I was substituting right and left for ingredients, and, well - like all of us - I've been known to bomb a few times with new recipes in the kitchen so that was in the back of my mind. In fact, I was so pessimistic I didn't even keep the recipe...
...at first.
Holy cow, this was SO incredibly tasty!! Looking for a veggie lasagna recipe that included red bell peppers, I stumbled upon this recipe, and then riff-riff-riffed away at it with foods I had on hand, along with making it far more homemade, homegrown, and utilizing that reduceatarian concept to veganize several of the ingredients. I'm sure the original recipe is scrumptious, but I wanted to economize and use what I had on hand, so here's how I did it...
Pasta - My husband's the ace at making homemade pasta from just organic semolina and our ducks' eggs. No need ever to buy lasagna noodles if you have semolina flour at home, folks - even if you don't have a pasta maker. It's pennies on the dollar compared to the processed stuff and the taste is incomparable. Yes, believe it or not, a rolling pin will do in a pinch to make pasta (after all, lasagna is just a sheet cut into rectangles - I did this myself years ago making ravioli and it was easy-peasy!
Sauce - The entire recipe called for about 3 cups of red bell pepper (half for the sauce, half for the filling) which is 2-3 peppers, plus veggie stock. I only had one red bell pepper on hand, and had just used up my stock, so I got creative. I subbed pureed tomato for the stock and 1/4 cup of paprika - which is simply dried bell pepper - for the pepper (if you like red pepper tomato soup, you'll appreciate this) with some water, and saved my whole bell pepper for the filling.
Ricotta - I normally go out and get my organic ricotta from the local creamery out here (but who also usually sell at my husband's co-op but have been out for a while), and being ricotta-less, I remembered how I'd made a quick vegan ricotta from cashews, lemon juice, garlic, salt and nutritional yeast in the food processor in the past and - bam! Since I had recently refilled my quart jar of organic cashews from the bulk aisle (soooo much cheaper than buying in bags - plus you can often find 'cashew pieces' which are even cheaper!), problem solved - not to mention no plastic tub. Yay!
Mozzarella - I veganized this ingredient as well, using the Miyoko's, thin sliced throughout the filling. Parmigiano-Reggiano, as usual, was the only non-vegan cheese used.
Red Pepper - While I mentioned above what I did with the sauce, the recipe wants you to use a jar of roasted red peppers, which is nearly impossible to find organic, is expensive for what you get, and I didn't have the time to roast them. Instead? I diced them, sprinkling them amongst the cheeses and oh yes it tasted sooo lovely.
I share this as I think it's important to not look for perfect fits when you see recipes that sound good but you don't have 100% of the ingredients. Get clever. Think about the flavors you want to create and always ask the questions "can I make that myself?", "is there a vegan version I can make right here in my own kitchen?", and "what flavors can I substitute that I still think are tasty?". It can change everything, make cooking fun, and save some cash as well...
New recipe to riff off of, new use for my beloved sweet bell peppers, new way to reduce our dairy intake, and a new level of anticipation for our garden's bounty later this summer of those beauties!
PS - You'll start to hear me refer to "reduceatarian" more and more as I share foods I'm making here on this blog, and if you want to read about our evolution in this regard from living on the farm to now in our downsized place in the valley, click HERE.
This was freakin' awesome