Karina makes garden lasagna!

A few weeks ago I invited my friend Aaron over for dinner and since I had never cooked for him before, I felt the need to push myself and create something new and really delicious. I was craving something warm and indulgent but didn't want the stomach ache and heaviness to come with it, so I went to the store and bought my bag fill of fresh, organic produce.

I decided to pull out the old casserole dish and make a vegan lasagna using only vegetables in place of noodles.

First I sliced red cabbage, yellow and orange peppers, and onions into thin stripes and set aside. I remembered when I made veggie dogs at my sister's down in Santa Cruz and had baked chard leafs in the oven until they became crispy and stiff to use as wraps, so I decided I would do the same thing and layer them as a type of lasagna noodle.

To do this I washed and dried my lovely chard leafs, and coated the with a mixture of olive oil, brags, lemon salt, pepper and cayenne. I baked them at 400* for probably 5 or 10 minutes on each side until they almost started to blacken a little.

I spread a layer of crispy chard leafs, then vegan almond "mozzarella" cheese, my fresh stripes of veggies, cut up kale, and then my vegan tomato cashew sauce and continued to layer.

For the sauce I soaked cashews, added 2 tbl tahini, 3 gloves of garlic, 1 can organic tomato paste, water for a smooth texture, fresh basil, oregano, lemon, salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne. YUM!

I baked this all at 400* for probably 25 minutes or so until it was cooked through and melted into a creamy hot lasagna-like dream!

I made a fresh salad or heirloom carrots and tomatoes, tossed with lemon, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, agave, salt and pepper. Vegan and gluten-free lasagna definitely never tasted so good!