Lasagne with Tofu Ricotta

I like making lasagne because the leftovers are easy to save, and you can stuff a lot of different ingredients in it. Traditional lasagne uses ricotta cheese, and a lot of it at that. If you haven't already noticed, I'm not about to use cheese. Luckily, someone a while back sent us a great idea for lasagne using a tofu/veggie mix instead of cheese. Let's run with that for now.

Ingredients:
Lasagne noodles (usually about 9)
Pasta sauce (a big 22-ounce jar, any kind)
3 cups spinach
2 cups zucchini
1 cup asparagus
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium tomatoes
1 12-ounce block of tofu (soft)
1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast (or a package of chreese)
3 "eggs" worth or egg replacer or protein powder
Thyme
Basil
Coriander
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Begin by boiling the lasagne noodles in a big pot of water, according to the directions on the box (unless you make your own). Most lasagne noodles (I'm using whole wheat) will require at least 10-minutes of boiling.

While the noodles are boiling, dice one of the tomatoes, the onion, asparagus, and zucchini. Mix it all together in a bowl.















Crumble the tofu on top and add the lemon juice, the egg replacer, a teaspoon of thyme, a teaspoon of coriander, and two teaspoons of basil.















Mush it all up with your hands (or a good spatula) and add the nutritional yeast (or chreese).















By now, the noodles should be done. Put down your first layer of three noodles in a 9-by-13 inch glass dish.















Add half of the tofu/veggie mixture to the noodles. Make sure you spread it out.















Cover that with some sauce.















Now for another layer of three noodles.



















You should start sauteeing your spinach in the olive oil, now. The spinach goes on top, so take care of the rest of the layers while it cooks. First, you need to chop off all the spinach stems.















Then you can put it in a pan with some olive oil and start it sauteeing. If the pan gets dry, add a tiny bit of water to help the spinach cook more.















Add the other half of the tofu/veggie mixture to the lasagne.















Cover that with one more later of sauce and the rest of the noodles. When the spinach is done sauteeing, add that to the top as well. Grind some pepper on, just for taste.















Slice up the remaining tomato and place the slices on the spinach. You can arrange them any way you see fit, depending on how many slices you get out of the tomato.















Bake the lasagne for 30-45 minutes. Check it at 30 minutes to make sure the noodles are not getting all hard and gristly.

When the lasagne comes out, let it cool a little and then serve some up. It tastes very good with bread sticks to soak up the sauce at the bottom.















Variations:
You can use whatever kind of tomato sauce you like with this, but be careful not to overseason if you do because many pasta sauces have enough seasoning in them already.
If you want some extra spice, use peppers in the tofu/veggie mixture instead of asparagus or add red pepper flakes to the spinach while it is sauteeing.
Steamed kale would be a good substitute for spinach -- you wouldn't need to use oil, it's got a good shape for lasagne, and it's a very healthy vegetable, too.