Lasagna with soy and zucchini

I cooked this lasagna quite while ago, but now eventually I'll update it here :) It's very simple and quick to make, and you can prepare it even if you have only one kettle - well, you need two kettles and a bit more time & effort for making the tomato sauce and bechamel sauce for the more traditional Italian lasagna :) This isn't traditional, maybe not even so Italian, but still worth trying!

I usually prepare the tomato sauce for vegetarian lasagna with soy or TVP which is very practical to use and adds some more protein to any vegetarian sauce. Also in this recipe I have used dark crushed soy.



For the sauce:

1 onion (or two if you really like onion)
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp olive oil for frying
2-3 dl soy (or other TVP)
6-7 dl water or vegetable stock (I just added 1 tbsp of organic veg stock powder)
200 g soft/processed cheese (that melts well)
spices as basil, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, salt

zucchini (around half a kilo)
lasagna noodles
parmigiano cheese


Chop the onions and garlic and fry them in olive oil.

Add the soy and some water, let it simmer for some time and add more water if needed, and the spices. If you don't know how long to cook TVP, check on the package.

When the soy is cooked, add the cheese and let it melt into the sauce.

In the meantime chop the zucchini into pieces or slices and lightly oil a lasagna baking dish.

Lay some sauce and pieces of zucchini at the bottom, cover with pasta and repeat until the baking dish is full. Add the rest of the sauce on top of the dish and sprinkle some grated parmigiano on top of it.

Bake in 225 C for 40-50 minutes. Enjoy with some green salad :)

Baci di dama

Right now I'm involved in a translation project, which takes a lot of time and effort, but it's also nice: translating cookie recipes from all around the world :) I was working on Italian recipes yesterday: I had chosen amaretti, cantuccini and baci di dama. I was very inspired by the website of Sonia Peronaci called Giallo Zafferano (Yellow Saffron) - great recipes, clear pictures and videos, good layout..well, too bad that it's available only in Italian! Maybe the pictures help to cook and bake even if the text would be incomprehensible? :)

I just tried for the first time the baci di dama cookies and that's indeed a very good recipe, but takes some time..so don't try to make these if you are in a hurry!

I read here that they come originally from a Piemontese town called Tortona, where they have been created 1893 in Pasticceria di Zanotti, and ever since they have used the same recipe and same form for the cookies that indeed look like kissing lips :)

Baci di dama (40-50 cookies)

Ingredients:

200 g hazelnuts or almonds
200 + 20 g plain flour
20 g (1,5 tbsp) cacao powder
200g butter
200 g sugar
for the filling 200 g dark chocolate (I used around 130g plate, which was enough)

Preheat the oven to 180 C and roast the nuts or almonds for 10 minutes, let cool. Mince them in a food processor with 2 tbsp of sugar, then mix in a bowl with 200 g of flour. Divide the flour mix into two bowls and add 20 g or 1,5 tbsp of cacao powder to one bowl, 20 g or 1,5 tbsp flour to another bowl, mix well. Add 100 g of butter to both of the doughs - I added also a drop of water because the dough was dry and crumbling. After having formed two even balls of dough, chill them in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Roll the chilled doughs into long bars and cut them into evenly small pieces. Roll the pieces into small balls and place them on baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes in 180 C, let cool.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a kettle of simmering water. Fill the bacis with a drop of chocolate. Place them on a plate and let cool in a fridge before serving them.

I'll bring them to my Italian group tonight, I hope they will like them, too!