Vegan lasagne

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to a good old 180 degrees.
2. Halve and peel your butternut squash and chop up into bite sized pieces. Drizzle some oil over the top and roast in the oven for 20 minutes or until soft.  Set aside to cool.
3. Soak the cashew nuts in boiling water for 30 minutes to an hour. This will make then tender enough to whizz up in your food processor and make a delicious creamy sauce.
4. I always soak my lasagne sheets in boiling water until they become a little soft, as this means that you don’t get any hard bits of pasta in your lasagne!   I do them in batches and leave them for about 10 minutes each. Doing them in batches means they don’t stick to each other – they can be a nightmare to pull apart! 
5. Next you are ready to make the bolognaise.  Dice your onions and chop the carrots into small pieces. Heat up the oil in a decent sized frying pan, or casserole pan, and chuck them in to fry off. Leave them to cook off gently for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time.
6. Dice the garlic finely and add this to the pan to fry off for another 5 minutes. Make sure it doesn’t burn!  You can then add your vegan mince to the pan, cooking according to the pack instructions.
7. Once your mince is cooked, pour in the red wine and let this sizzle away until it has almost all been cooked off. This usually takes around 5 minutes; you may need to turn the heat up a little to get it bubbling nicely.
8. Tip in the two cans of tomatoes, the tomato puree, the sun dried tomatoes (finely diced) and the oregano into the pan and give it a good stir around.  Half fill one of the empty cans with water and pour it into the mixture as well.  Now you’re ready to leave the bolognaise to do its thing and become gorgeous and flavourful! Let it simmer gently for 30 minutes or so. This will give you time to make the “cheesy” sauce.
9. At last, you’re ready for the wizardly of the “cheesy” sauce! You will need a high powered blender for this; I use a Nutribullet.  Put the butternut squash, soaked cashew nuts, 100ml of the cream, all the oak milk, the nutritional yeast and a good pinch of salt into your blender and whizz until smooth. I only put 100ml of the cream into mine at this stage as it wouldn’t all fit!! If it won’t fit then leave out some of the liquid and add it later.  Set aside your silky smooth sauce.
10. Ok, so now you’re going to make a roux for the base of your “cheese” sauce – this is my totally fool proof guide that I always follow….Heat the butter in a frying pan until melted. Remove from the heat and add the flour. Use a whisk to mix the butter and flour together until all the lumps are gone. Then add a few tablespoons of your liquid (from stage 9); again, keep whisking until there are no lumps and the roux is completely incorporated into the liquid.  Pop the pan back onto the heat and add the rest of the liquid you made in stage 9 and any remaining cream that you have. Keep mixing to ensure that there are no lumps.
11. Let the sauce heat up gently, on a low heat, for around 5 minutes. Then add 100grams of grated vegan cheese. Keeping it all on the heat mix the cheese into the sauce until fully incorporated. I usually switch to a wooden spoon here for a better stirring action.
12. You can now begin layering up your amazing lasagne!  Put a third of the bolognaise into an oven proof dish; layer over the lasagne sheets; then layer over a third of the “cheese” sauce.  Repeat this until you have 3 layers. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top of the lasagne and cook in your preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.
13. You can now enjoy a little kitchen dancing until your lasagne is cooked!  Fish your lasagne out of the oven and scatter over some basil leaves. Enjoy with a green salad and the rest of that wine.