Mexican Lasagna (Vegan)

Mexican Lasagna (Vegan)

It was my husband who gave me the idea to try out a vegan diet.  In October, I had my annual physical and my blood work showed my cholesterol is high.  I have been maintaining a weight loss of about 30 pounds so I was hopeful my cholesterol levels would be better with all the changes I’ve made in my diet, but that was not so.  It occurred to me that I was eating a lot of animal protein and, upon my request, my doctor gave me 90 days to see if I could make some changes and lower my cholesterol levels on my own.  My doctor suggested I may just have “bad genes” or that my high cholesterol is “hereditary”, but I’d like to see what I can do.  I’ve been eating a plant based diet since mid-November 2019.  

I think my husband was really surprised to see how much energy I have had while eating a plant based diet.  I have not been hungry or tired or gained weight; these were my fears.  Actually I have lost weight and am having a really easy time keeping my weight steady eating this way.  

My husband finally decided to try out a plant based diet with me.  This is nice because we are eating the same things (I am not cooking separate meals for him like I have been for a really long time).  If I was just cooking vegan dishes for myself, I would be eating a lot of Indian and Chinese inspired dishes.  Now that I am trying to find recipes my husband and I will both like, we are making lots of Mexican Inspired meals.  

Here is a fun recipe we tried out... Mexican Lasagna.  I pretty much followed the recipe with just a few exceptions.  I used a red and yellow bell pepper instead of red and green. I omitted the cashew cheese sauce as well as the cilantro and olives.  I added a few pickled jalapeño slices in my lasagna layers.  I also warmed the refried beans with a little bit of salsa to make the refried beans easier to spread.  Finally, in place of the fresh tomatoes, I substituted a can of drained fire roasted tomatoes. The flavors in this casserole are really good.  The texture is rather soft.  I am learning that many vegan foods are soft in texture.  For us, what made this dish super was good was all the toppings we added to our individual portions.  Here our suggestions:

Shredded iceberg lettuce
Chopped tomatoes

Diced avocado

Crushed tortilla chips (we used blue corn tortilla chips)

Sliced black olives

Pickled jalapeno slices

Spicy Ranch Dressing (see recipe HERE).  Note: this recipe is great made with or without salsa.

This recipe comes from a great blog called “Dianne’s Vegan Kitchen”.  Here is the recipe link:

https://www.diannesvegankitchen.com/mexican-lasagna-or-taco-pie/

Here is a photo of my Mexican Lasagna.  It’s not very attractive looking but our individual portions with gobs of toppings looked great and were mighty tasty.  It was nice to have this big casserole in the refrigerator for a few days of leftovers which were easy to reheat in the microwave oven.