It’s another nice spring day here in PEI and this week is flying by so far! I’ve been in a major spring cleaning mood and have been purging our house of things we don’t use. It feels great to be getting a bit of extra space and giving things to people who will use them more than we are. In addition to spring cleaning over the last couple days, I had another great run yesterday and am looking forward to the snow taking a hike so that my running location options start to open up……with so much snow still on the trails and waterfront boardwalk I’m pretty much limited to my neighborhood at the moment (which is fine since I’m still able to cover the distances on this weeks plan). Anyway, on to the main event…..my favourite easy lasagna recipe!!!
If you follow me on Facebook then you may know that I was sick with a cold over the weekend. I don’t get food cravings very often but when I have a cold and I decide I want something, you best get out of my way until I get it. Before I had to give up gluten, dairy, and eggs my lasagna recipe involved all three of those things. It was something that I just naturally assumed would become a distant foodie memory….until I found these awesome oven ready gluten free lasagna noodles.
My old recipe also took a considerable amount of work to put together. My current recipe takes less than half an hour to get in the oven. I usually make it without meat just because it’s quicker that way, but adding ground chicken, turkey, or hamburger into the tomato sauce is totally an option! I like to make the tomato sauce and let it simmer for a few minutes while I throw together the best part…..the Lemon Basil Cashew Cheeze from the Oh She Glows blog. I played around with several different “cheese” recipes but this is by far the best one that has made it’s way through our kitchen. My go-to tomato sauce starts off with diced sweet onion, red pepper, and garlic (Tip: to cut down on time use a food processor to do the chopping) sauteed together until the onion is translucent. Then I add in diced zucchini, sliced mushrooms, a can of crushed tomatoes, a can of diced tomatoes, and spices. This recipe is really a set of guidelines. You can use whatever ingredients you happen to have on hand or veggies that you enjoy.
- Lemon Basil Cashew Cheeze (from Oh She Glows)
- 1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for 30 mins or overnight
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup vegetable broth or water (or more as needed)
- 1.5 cups fresh basil leaves (lightly packed)
- ½ cup nutritional yeast (gives the cheese flavour)
- ¾-1 tsp kosher salt (or to taste) + freshly ground black pepper
- ½ tsp onion powder
- Tomato Sauce
- 1 small sweet onion
- 1 red pepper
- 2 cloves of garlic, diced
- 1 package of mushrooms (any kind), sliced
- 1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes
- 2 small zucchini, diced
- 1 tsp sea salt
- pepper
- 2 tsp dried basil (or 2 Tbsp fresh)
- 2 tsp dried oregano (or 2 Tbsp fresh)
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp dried thyme (or 1 Tbsp fresh)
- ½ tsp dried rosemary (or ½ Tbsp fresh)
- 1 package oven ready lasagna noodles (gluten free or otherwise)
- Lemon Basil Cashew Cheeze
- Drain and rinse soaked cashews. With the food processor of high powered blender turned on, drop in your garlic cloves and process until chopped. Add in the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Sauce
- Combine the onion, garlic, and red pepper in a large pot and cook until the onion is translucent. Add in the mushrooms, zucchini, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and spices. Bring to a simmer while you make the "cheese" mixture.
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. To put the lasagna together, spread 1 to 1.5 cups of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a baking dish. Add in a layer of the uncooked lasagna noodles, top with approximately 1 cup of tomato sauce (make sure the noodles all have some sauce on them), spread some of the "cheese" mixture, then start again with a noodle layer. Repeat until you 1) run out of room to stack or 2) run out of sauce!
- Bake (covered) in the oven for 40 to 45 minutes then remove the cover and broil for 5 minutes. It's a good idea to put the baking dish on a cookie sheet...that has saved me from cleaning up a mess on more than one occasion when sauce ended up boiling over the side of the dish. Let stand for 10-15 minutes once it's out of the oven, it makes it MUCH easier to cut and get onto a plate. Enjoy!
Hi I'm Pam, welcome to my blog! I'm here sharing recipes, day-to-day musings, fitness, travel, and my journey to health, wellness, and happiness. 
