V3G@Nizm

I have been eating a bit of Vegan food l8ly (soz still pumped about abbreviation from the title). It has been a while since my last intentional vegan meal, but my friend Hayden is Vegan and I often get the desire to cook for him. Last week was one of those times.

Well first we went to his place last wednesday and he cooked us some maaaaaaaad tomato & vegie pastie roll things, with salad and garlic bread (Coles plain brand garlic bread happens to be vegan!! OMGOMGOMG). Here are the happy snaps of Haydens yummy dinner

You may be surprised to know that the vegan in the above photo is not the skinny one. Many people are surprised to know that Hayden is a vegan, as he looks like a... how do you say... tank. This may be due to the fact that he lifts weights and hooks himself up to an IV drip overnight of power shakes and plasma tranfusions etc. Not really. Well yeah, he does lift weights. He is in a club called "Vegan Strength" and I have seen some other club members and they are strong. See: http://www.veganstrength.org/ for photos that make you feel inadequate as a human.

Anyway, Friday night was my turn, as my cousin from Adelaide was coming to stay and she's vego. So i thought what better night to cook vegan again for H-dizzle mah nizzle than this! I made a vegan lasagna, and it was great!! I made one with balsamic tomato roasted vegies, and added some 'Vegan Mince' to the mix.

First, I cut up my fave vegies for roasting - pumpkin, eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, and a bit of onion and tomato. I make a balsamic dressing by adding olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tomato paste, garlic and capers in a bowl and mixing them all up into an oily oily paste. Bung it in the oven to roast for a while..

Next i make the base tomato sauce by frying off onions and garlic in olive oil. Then i add canned tomatoes and some VEGAN (i used "Mission brand") stock and water. After a while i added lentils, and then while we were making salad i decided i wanted some mushrooms in it tooooo! I was drinking wine while cooking so it was about this point where i totally lost interest haha. I think i added some tomato paste maybe, and some salt and pepper.

Now for the vegan mince I used "Planet Organic" brand which i think we got from Safeway (Woolworths). Hayden made this part, and the finished product kinda looks like some ungodly froth bubbling up from the pits of zombie hell.

Then when we had drained the liquid away, I added the mince to the tomato sauce, and grabbed the vegies from the oven too.

Then i forgot about my camera and finished it all up. I made a white sauce with Nuttelex, soy milk, flour, and herbs like nutmeg and rosemary.

Then i layered it all together with vegan lasagna sheets, topped it with some breadcrumbs, chucked it in the oven, and BAM! AMAZING VEGAN LASAGNAAAAA!