Eggplant Lasagna

After having access to conventional oven, i always wanted to try new recipes which we could only eat at restaurants, the quantity being one-third of what i would make at home for the same cost or probably less. Being outside India, other important reason for not preferring restaurant for these new cuisines is the vegetarian part of it. I don't believe if they can make a complete vegetarian version of any dish excluding egg or fish and that's another motivating factor for me to try out new recipes at home.

Coming to Lasagna, my dear hubby had tasted it somewhere when he went out for lunch and that's when he started telling me to try that out at home. He was very sure i will like the taste. The next thing we did was to get the ready-made 'Wholemeal Lasagna sheets'. My interest plunged when i started researching recipes for 'Vegetarian Lasagna' and that's when the lasagna sheets went to a corner of my grocery shelf and i just ignored it then. Everytime when i cleaned the shelf and set things right, this one gets a quick attention and disappeared from my mind at the same speed...:))

Okay, one day i decided to try this completely eggless and see how its gonna turn out....One thing i was sure by that time , was that the veggies to be used is absolutely our choice. So i went on making the veggie sauce, cut the eggplant into small cubes and kept my grated cheddar cheese ready to be assembled together....

Final step was to pre-heat the oven and during the time it was getting heated, i arranged lasagna sheets/Veggie sauce/eggplant/Cheese, layer by layer and kept it ready. Once the oven is preheated, i baked the lasagna and the result -- in one word --- just AWESOME...!!

yeaaahhh, i made a completely veggie version with no egg layer in between and it was sooo yummy....most importantly well received by kids.....:))

For weight watchers, this is a not-so-frequent recipe to be tried and which requires a lot-of-workout later due to the amount of cheese being added.

Ingredients:

Wholemeal Lasagna sheets - 6 (broad ones)

Cheddar Cheese or any cheese of your choice - shredded

Vegetables (Onion, Red Capsicum,Green Capsicum, Zucchini,Eggplant) - cut into small cubes - about 2 cups heaped

Tomato - 5 or 6 juicy and riped ones

Garlic - 3 pods minced

Dry Italian herbs - 2 tbsp

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Method:

Veggie sauce:

1. Make a puree of the tomatoes or use 2 cans of ready-made tomato puree.

2. Heat olive oil, add onion & garlic and saute them till golden brown. Sprinkle required amount of salt.

3. Now add the vegetables one by one saute them till they get half cooked. Do not add the eggplant.

4. Now add the tomato puree, italian herbs, pepper powder and allow the sauce to get cooked. Simmer the flame.

5. Once the sauce comes to the right consistency (it should not be too watery or too thick) switch off the flame and keep it aside and allow it to cool.

Assembling Lasagna:

Pre-heat the oven to 180°

1. Grease the baking tray (i used cake pan) with olive oil.

2. Make a thin layer of veggie sauce first. 

3. Spread a layer of Lasagna sheets on top.

4. Spread a layer of veggie sauce.

5. Spread a layer of eggplant/Spinach/basil/pumpkin.

6. Spread a layer of cheese (be liberal in this step as this makes the lasagna very tasty).

7. Repeat steps 3 to 6 till the baking tray is full.

8. Make sure the top most layer is cheese.

9. Cover the baking tray with aluminium foil and feed it into the oven for 20 mins.

10.Remove the foil and bake it again for 10 mins.

11. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 mins.

Now the lasagna is ready to be served. Cut the lasagna into squares and serve it hot.

Give a try and let me know your comments. :)