Sweet Potato "Lasagna"

I was pondering some kind of baked, easy-to-reheat casserole situation for Liz to eat while I was out of town, while I was taking stock of the contents of the kitchen cabinets.

A jar of marinara sauce got me thinking about lasagna. I could make up a little cashew-tofu ricotta, maybe brown some mushrooms, that sounds good. Yeah.

Okay, dude, but you don't have any lasagna noodles. Okay, well, I've made a lasagna-like layered casserole with potatoes before, do I have any potatoes?

Well, you've got some sweet potatoes. And those would be a healthier option than white potatoes. Maybe this might come together into something real, here.

It's good, but I might not even use the L word to describe it. Let's call it a multilayer sweet potato marinara casserole, I guess.



To that effect, I rubbed seven smallish garnets with oil, baked them, let them cool, and then peeled and sliced them.

I also sliced ten fat white mushrooms into quarter-inch slices. I was contemplating some skinnier slices, but I decided I wanted a meatier bite. I cooked these with a splash of oil until I got a real good mahogany sear.



Ingredients:

• seven baked, peeled, sliced sweet potatoes
• about 15-20 oz sliced button mushrooms, seared in oil
• fist-sized ball of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 26 oz jar of marinara ( I used Trader Joe's)

I also made a batch of cashew-tofu "ricotta" by food processing:

• 12 oz extra-firm tofu
• 1/2 cup soaked raw almonds
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• capful of apple cider vinegar
• splash of water
• salt and pepper to taste

Get a nine by thirteen glass pan and set your oven to 350.

Later any way that makes you happy, but I put a dollop of sauce on the bottom of the pan, then a layer of potato slices,



then half the ricotta, then the mushrooms and parsley.



Repeat these layers until you run out of ingredients, then arrange any remaining sweet potato slices as attractively as possible on the top of the casserole.



I sprinkled mine with a couple heavy pinches of almond parmezan, and then slid it into the oven.

Bake 15 minutes covered with foil, and then 15 minutes uncovered.



If I'd had some spinach, frozen or otherwise, that would have been a welcome addition, but I think it turned out pretty great anyway.