Lasasgna Homestyle

Ingredients:

French lentils
brown rice
brown rice lasagna noodles
Roasted crushed tomatoes
Italian seasoning
garlic
oil
winter squash (butternut)
salt
coconut aminos
zucchini
black pepper
optional cheese alternative of choice

Instructions:

Prepare the ingredients one day before the baking. First soak and cook lentils. Cook brown rice. Peel and clean winter squash, and place in baking dish with a bit of water, oil, coconut aminos, and a pinch of salt. Cover the squash and roast in the oven til very tender. Blend roasted squash. Let everything cool, then place in the refrigerator.

Next day, saute garlic with oil in a large skillet. Add crushed tomatoes, the cooked lentils, Italian seasonings, salt and pepper. Simmer for a bit.

Combine with cooked rice, and blend at least half of the total mixture. This is the protein part of the lasagna. The texture is best when the combination is about 50/50 mashed lentils tomatoes and whole, recognizable crushed tomatoes and lentils.

Par-cook the lasagna noodles.

Wash and thinly slice zucchini with peeler or mandolin slicer.

Set-up all lasagna ingredients to prepare to layer them into the an oiled casserole dish.

Preheat oven to 300F degrees.

To layer, first place a thin layer of lentil and tomato sauce, then the first layer of lasagna noodles, then a layer of squash puree, then overlapped zucchini slices, then a thicker layer of tomato lentil sauce, noodles, squash puree, zucchini slices; and then repeat.

Bake covered for 60 minutes. Remove cover and finish bake for 30 to 45 minutes. Shorter, high-temp baking is fine, too.

For optional vegan cheese, layer it between the zucchini slices and next layer of lentil sauce. Reserve a bit of cheese for topping, but be sure to add after at least one hour of initial bake.

Let the casserole rest covered 20-30 minutes before slicing and serving.