Lasagna with Roasted Cauliflower Ricotta & Spinach

This is a recipe I made for dinner this past Sunday night.  This recipe is adapted from the book “Appetite for Reduction” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Ingredients:

For the Roasted Cauliflower Ricotta:

• 1 medium-size head cauliflower (1 1/2 to 2 pounds), chopped into 1/2 inch pieces (leave off stems)
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 1 pound extra-firm tofu
• Nutritonal yeast flakes
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Ground black pepper

For the Red Sauce:

• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes with basil
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Other Ingredients:

• 8 ounces lasagna noodles, cooked according to package, broken in half
• 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh spinach

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Place prepared cauliflower on greased baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil on top and sprinkle with salt. Toss with hands to make sure everything is evenly coated. Bake for 10 minutes, flip with a spatula, continue to bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned and tender.
2. While that is baking, crumble tofu into a mixing bowl with your hands to mash the tofu into the consistency of ricotta cheese. Add nutritional yeast, lemon juice, pepper, and salt. Mix well with a fork.
3. When the cauliflower is done, add it to the mixing bowl with the tofu.  Use a potato masher to mash everything together really well and set aside.
4. To prepare the sauce, mix all the sauce ingredients together and set aside.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F. To assemble lasagna: Pour a thin layer of red sauce on the bottom of a 13×9 inch pan. Line with a layer of noodles. Add some of the cauliflower ricotta mixture. Layer with some spinach leaves. Add about a cup of sauce on top. Repeat this process one more time to create another identical layer, starting with the noodles. For the top layer: line with noodles, pour on sauce, layer with cauliflower ricotta mixture. (This layer has no spinach.)
6. Bake for 40 minutes, until the top is browned.

Note: After the cauliflower is done baking, just lower the oven to 350F so it is already preheated for the lasagna to bake.  This is also the time to begin cooking the lasagna noodles according to the directions on the package.

This is a bit time consuming, but definitely worth making on a weekend.