Paccheri Lasagna

Words of Life

"LIFE is a combination of spontaneity, laughter and pasta."

-letsvegaboutit

Recipe below:

Ingredients

Food for 12 servings

Pasta:

55 pieces of paccheri (cooked and drained)

Cheese:

3 cups of shredded vegan Mozzarella

or like in the video 2 1/2 packets of Sheese slices

Ricotta:

2 hard tofu packets(crumbled)

1 lemon (juiced)

1/2 TBS garlic salt

1/2 TBS basil

Walnut meat:

2 cups of walnut (soaked, rinsed and pulsed)

1 1/2 carrots (pulsed)

1 TBS salt

1 TBS basil

1/2 TBS oregano

1/2 TBS of oil

1 TBS of soy sauce

1 tsp of liquid smoke

Spinach:

1 bag spinach (chopped)

1 TBS oil

1 TBS minced garlic

1/2 tsp salt

Tomato Sauce:

1/4 cup of water

1 onion diced

1 TBS of minced garlic

3 cups button mushrooms (quartered)

1 cup of tomatoes (quartered)

1 TBS of garlic salt

1 TBS of basil

1/2 Tbs of oregano

1 1/2 TBS of parsley

1/4 cup green olives (halved)

1/4 cup black olives (halved)

4 cups (2 jars) of pomodoro sauce

How to:

1) Prep your walnut meat and ricotta

* walnut meat - soak the nuts in water overnight

* Take the two tofu and set them in a colinder, and place something heavy on it to help remove as much excess water

2) Riccota - place the tofu in a bowl and crumble it with your hands. Then add the lemon juice, garlic salt, and basil. Set it aside.

3) Walnut meat - drain and rinse out the walnut. With a food

processor pulse the walnut so it looks like ground meat. Do the same with the carrots. Then add everything into a bowl.

Add salt, basil & oregano.

In a wok - add the oil and the walnut meat mixture. Saute for about 3 min. Then add the soy sauce and liquid smoke.

Saute for 5 minutes. Set it aside.

4) Spinach - In a wok, add oil and your chopped spinach, & minced garlic. Mix it. Then add salt. Saute for 3- 5 min. or until the liquid has evaporated. Set aside.

5) Tomato sauce - In a wok, add 1/4 cup of water. Add onions, garlic. Cook for about 1 min. Then add tomatoes & garlic salt. Cook until tomatoes are soft. Meanwhile cut the olives and mushrooms. Then add them to the wok. Cook until the mushrooms are soft. Then add the pomodoro sauce, oregano, basil, parsley. Mix all together. Then add garlic salt.

6) Pasta - Cook all the paccheri in boiling water till they are nice and flexible. Drain the water and rinse.

7) Assemble - In a 9 in. deep dish, put the tomato sauce down first, then working in layers, add the paccheri, riccota, spinach, walnut meat, cheese, tomato sauce. Then do a V second layer of everything you have. Then wrap it with wax paper and overlay that with foil.

Baking:

* IF you froze it - then set the oven at 125*C (257*F) for 2 hours - we slow cooked it so as not to burn the outside.

* IF you are cooking it right away 150*C (302*F) for 45 min. Check periodically. You know it is done with everything is boiling.

NOTE: check on it periodically since each oven may be different. You may need to adjust the heating based on how your oven works.

Happy EATING!