Beet and Yellow Pepper Lasagna

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?? If a lasagna doesn't have cheese, noodles, or tomatoes in it, is it still a lasagna??

These my friends are questions I'll leave up to you to answer. Personally, The reason why I called this dish a lasagna is because my roommate Rachael's lasagna inspired me to make it. I'm not going to say I was jealous when she was spreading ricotta and homemade buffalo tomato sauce over thick lasagna noodles, I'm just gonna say, I wanted it. There's something about lasagna that hits home for me. Maybe it was my childhood fascination/obsession with Garfield, maybe its my mom's kick-ass vegetarian lasagna, but when I see cheese bubbling over sauce in a 9 x 13 baking dish, I want to eat it all and curl up inside the pan.

This recipe hits home. The beautiful color comes from the beets and the "cheese" on top is an almond nutritional yeast blend that's awesome. The texture of the entire dish is well rounded, the beets serve as almost a noodle. The best part of it is its still messy like lasagna where you'll need fresh bread (I used a french baguette and homemade sour-dough) to sop up the leftover sauce on your plate. Please, enjoy.

Anabell's Bring it on Home Beet and Yellow Pepper Lasagna

For the "cheese/ricotta" topping:

-3/4 cup raw soaked almonds

-1/2 cup nutritional yeast

-1/4 cup Rice milk

-3 tsp. veganaise

-1 tbsp. lemon juice

Throw all ingredients into a food processor and blend until well mixed, totally ok for the almonds to still be chunky to give it a nice texture. Put it in the fridge.

Lasagna:

-3 small beets - peeled and sliced thinly

-2 yellow bell peppers sliced

-2 tbsp. olive oil

-2 bunches scallions - chopped

-3-4 cloves of garlic - chopped finely or pressed

-1 tbsp. parsley

-pinch of salt

-1/2 cup rice milk

-2 tbsp. flour

-1 cup veggie broth

Preheat oven to 350.

In a sauce pan saute the scallions, garlic, parsley and salt in olive oil. When they turn tender and start smelling delicious (about 5-7 mns on med-low heat) throw in the rice milk and flour and stir until it starts thickening. You don't want it too thick, you'll only need to keep it on heat for about another 2-3 mns if that.

Toss a little olive oil in the bottom of a 6x8 baking dish and layer the bottom with beets. On top of the beets spread your saute mix then a layer of yellow bell peppers and top it with another layer of beets and another layer of yellow bell peppers. Pour in 1 cup of vegetable broth*** and cover. Bake at 350 for about 30 mns. After 30 mns. take out and spread your "cheese" layer on the top. Cover and put back in the over for another 20-30 mns. Serve with bread.

***a note on veggie broth

My household has been collecting all of our veggie scraps and throwing them in a ziplock bag that we keep in the freezer. We throw everything in there: onion peels/skins, garlic skins, ends of carrots, beet greens, bell pepper cores/seeds, herbs, whatever, anything and everything veggie related. When one or two bags are full we fill a soup pot with water and throw our frozen scraps in and maybe a couple dashes of celery salt or garlic powder. Bring to a boil and simmer for a long time (2-4 + hours). Strain and BAM! Veggie broth. Its awesome, we always have veggie broth in our freezer for whenever we need it. That stuff is expensive!! So just save your scraps and never worry about paying for veggie broth again!!