Labor Lasagna needs it's own post

So I'm on my second bowl of labor lasagna today. Honestly not because I am horribly uncomfortable and need to be in labor immediately, but because IT IS SO GOOD.

I made it with the intention to make it super spicy, but it turned out to be just a normal amount of spicy, which I ended up being grateful for, in the end.

Anyway, I guess I'll write up a ghetto recipe about it, since it is amazing.

First, prepare the ingredients:

-Prepare the sauce. I use my own homemade sauce but you can also just get any jarred sauce of your preference. You would need about 2 quarts (jars) of it though. Heat it up in a saucepan and set aside.
-Prepare the peppers--I used 2/3's of four different kinds of hot pepper cut up into small pieces. You gotta go with the fresh pepper, just using "pepper" or bell peppers is not going to cut it.
After cutting up the peppers, I also cut up a clove of garlic, and put the peppers and garlic in a small amount of sauce (one cup) to heat up and stew.
After a few minutes, turn off the heat and set the sauce aside.
-Prepare the eggplant--slice the eggplant in thin (1/4-1/8 inch) slices. Dip each slice in salt on both sides, and stack the slices up on a plate. Leave them for 15 minutes or longer while you do other things.
Then, when you are ready to use them, wash the slices off and pat them dry with a paper towel or cloth towel. You may notice (hopefully) that they have spewed forth tons of brown liquid--supposedly this is all the bitterness coming out of them. Once they are dried, set them aside for layering.
-Prepare the "protein"--I used tofu but you could also used ground meat or tempeh:
I crumbled up the tofu and fried it in the wok in olive oil with salt for a LONG time, until the water was all evaporated and the tofu was getting nice and browned.
Then I added about 1/3 of the cut up hot peppers and let them cook with the tofu for a few more minutes, as it got even more brown, fried, and yummy. Finally, take out of the wok and set aside for layering.
-Prepare the other veggies. Honestly this could be anything, because the important things are the peppers and eggplant. I used one onion, one red bell pepper, and a grated carrot. Grate or cut into small pieces all of the other veggies you want to use and set aside in individual containers for layering.
-Prepare the cheese. I used vegan cheese (I highly recommend that brand), a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella flavors. If you are not vegan, use regular cheddar or mozzerella ;-). Anyway, grate the cheese up and put it aside.
-Finally, make sure you have a pound of lasagna noodles on hand. I used rice noodles because I'm gluten free and it worked out great, I didn't notice the difference with all the other flavors.

Now you are ready to make the lasagna!

Put a layer of sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish.
Then a layer of lasagna noodles.
Then one or more of the ingredients.
Repeat over and over until you are done, making sure to alternate the noodles in each layer in different directions.
Also make sure to use plenty of sauce--the noodles will soak it right up. After each layer of ingredients put a good layer of sauce before putting in your next layer of noodles.

In terms of what I did for layers: I think I put the carrot and onion in one layer, the tofu in one layer, the peppery sauce and cheese in one layer, the eggplant in one layer, the red peppers in one layer. (Did I forget anyone?)

Finally top the lasagna with a layer of cheese (and Parmesan cheese if you are not vegan), and bake at 400 degrees for a half hour to forty minutes. If you use the vegan cheese, you'll need to crank it up to 475 for the last 10 minutes because the cheese needs to be at a high temperature to melt.

Take it out of the oven, let it cool for at least 10 mins, and then enjoy with some of the sauce that you have leftover from putting it together. If you are lucky, it might look like this at the end:



I can't really get over how good it is, but lasagna IS my favorite food and I probably haven't had it in almost a year, so that might be part of it. I plan on eating it non-stop until it is gone, regardless of the status of labor or baby.