vegan lasagna feat. Daiya

Ingredients:
no boil lasagna noodles
4 or 5 decently sized heirloom tomatoes (about 1-1/4 lb total)
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 peppers, small dice
1-1/2 blocks extra firm tofu
juice from 3 lemons
1 bunch chard, leaves roughly torn
1/2 lb Daiya vegan cheese
salt and pepper to taste


We are going to start by a making a super fast sauce. Just add the tomatoes and garlic into your food processor, season with salt and pepper and blend while drizzling olive oil in until the sauce is finely pureed. Add this to a pot and cook on medium heat until the sauce reduces to about half it's volume, about 30 minutes. To make the tofu ricotta, add the tofu, lemon juice and chard leaves to the food processor and blend until smooth, seasoning with salt and pepper. To assemble to lasagna, spoon some sauce on to the bottom of a casserole dish, then add a layer of lasagna noodles, next spoon on some of the ricotta, then more noodles, a layer of peppers & cheese, and so forth until you've used everything up! Bake at 350 degrees, covered with tin foil, for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes so that the cheese on top gets nice and melty!*

* I usually find vegan cheeses repulsive. The many different textures and off-putting flavors I have experienced over the years have jaded me, and made me never want to stick anything labeled "vegan cheese" anywhere near my eating hole. But then @vegansaurus couldn't stop raving about Daiya, and we dig them, so I figured I would give it one more go around and hope not to have to hold my nose to get through dinner. To my astonishment, it's good! It melts! Wait- did you hear me? IT MELTS!!! Not the kind of melt that firms back up in 30 seconds after it loses all its moisture and turns into plastic either. It freaking melts for real and stays melted. And it tastes pretty good too! Is it cheese? No. Is it the best vegan cheese I have ever had after eating them for 13 years? DAMN STRAIGHT. So get down to Rainbow, look past the $9.99/lb. because really, it's not that expensive, and if you're vegan, it's well worth it. I want to try the cheddar flavor so I can make grilled cheese!