Vegan Lasagna & Timballo

Vegan Lasagna & Timballo

The story behind the recipe

These two recipes were created by the current Communication & Outreach Coordinator, Valentina. At the time she was a Student Cooking Corner volunteer and sold her food in the Forum during the SCC in March 2019. All the ingredients selected were of high quality or/and organic products, which added to the sustainable aspect of the dish.

Have you ever seen those ready-made lasagnas in the fridges of Jumbo? The ones in aluminium boxes, to microwave 20 minutes before eating them? Yeah, right? Well, my dear, those are not lasagnas. Those are the dark side of globalization. For every jumbo lasagna bought, there’s an Italian grandma turning in her grave. You can do something about this serious issue. You can stop this world spreading lasagna martyrdom. Say no to lasagna murderer! Follow these simple guidelines and spread the word with your friends, aggressively and angrily, like an authentic Italian would do for anything related to food.

What do you need?

For the Lasagna

• 125 g lasagna pasta
• 160 g vegan mozzarella
• 350 g Passata di pomodoro (tomato sauce)
• nutritional yeast
• oregano

For the Timballo

• 125 g lasagna pasta
• 160 g vegan mozzarella
• 250-300 g champignons
• nutritional yeast
• thyme

Besciamella (needed for both dishes)

• 50 mL (-ish) soy milk
• 50 g (-ish) wheat flour
• 100 g (-ish) soy butter/margarine
• nutmeg

How to make it

Besciamella

1. You first have to make the besciamella that is actually a pain in the ass. Ask your Italian housemates for assistance the first time.
2. Put butter, flour and milk in a pot. Add a little bit of nutmeg and salt.
3. Put the pot on medium intensity fire and stir. Stir and stir and stir. Omg you’re gonna be sick of stirring that damn besciamella. That’s when it’s ready. JK. See the next step.
4. After about 10 mins of stirring, put the fire almost at the maximum. Continue stirring, eh. When it gets dense it’s ready. Guess what? You have to stir it every now and then or it’s going to solidify.

Building your lasagna/timballo

1. Lasagna: Prepare the tomato sauce: pour it in a bowl and add extra virgin olive oil, oregano and salt
   Timballo: Cut the champignons in thin slices.
2. Chop the mozzarella in little cubes.
3. Get a tin. Check with the raw lasagnas for the best size, considering that the lasagnas are not really flexible.
4. Spread a little bit of besciamella on the bottom of the tin.
5. Get a pan and put a little bit of water in it. Add a pinch of salt and make it boil. Put 1 piece of lasagna in the boiling water. Wait 30 sec/1 min and take it out. Place it in the tin.
6. Make a whole layer of lasagnas pasta. Then 1 layer of besciamella. Then 1 layer of (lasagna) tomato sauce or (timballo) mushrooms. Then a layer of mozzarella.
   So: lasagnas, besciamella, sauce/mushrooms, mozzarella, REPEAT!
7. Make all the layers you want, considering an average lasagna has about 4-5 layers of pasta.
8. Look at your lasagna with love and pride.
9. Put in the oven at 200°C maybe 220°C, I don’t know.
10. Wait impatiently for about 30 minutes. My grandma would say “When it looks like something you would really want to eat, it’s ready!”
11. Enjoy!

Tips

You can add the spices for any layer at your own taste (nutmeg, black pepper, oregano, thyme, oil, whatever).
Nutritional yeast can be considered as a replacement for Parmigiano/grated cheese. You can add a bit for any layer and put a shit ton on the top layer.