GF DF pasta bake

[rosefox]

I'd planned to make lasagna, but the store was out of GF lasagna noodles, so I improvised a pasta bake instead. It came out really well! It's dairy-free because that's how my household rolls, and I included recommendations for brands of vegan ricotta and mozzarella but it would work just fine with regular cheese too. If you use vegan sausage, it's vegan. You can also substitute ready-made pasta sauce for the quick homemade version we do. Very flexible and adaptable recipe. The only thing I'd note is that you really need corn, rice, or quinoa pasta for this. Lentil or bean pasta won't work nearly as well.

Bonus recipe for cashew ricotta: Soak raw, unsalted cashews for four hours, pour out the water, put the cashews in your food processor (not the blender!), and drizzle in fresh cold water as you process them until the texture becomes creamy and ricotta-like. Add salt to taste. When I use it for lasagna, I process in fresh basil and nutmeg.

Bonus recipe for melted soy ~mozzarella: 7:1:2 proportion of pure soy milk (no thickeners), vegetable oil, and tapioca flour, plus miso paste to taste (depending on how tangy/salty you want it). Whisk ingredients together and pour into a nonstick pan. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a flexible spatula, until the mixture thickens, curdles, and becomes a single gooey mass. Immediately pour over pizza or pasta. For a dish this size, I'd probably use 7 Tbsp soy milk, 1 Tbsp oil, 2 Tbsp (or 1/8 cup) tapioca flour, and 1.5 tsp miso paste, which would make about half a cup of melted cheese.

Ingredients

12 oz Barilla or other corn/rice GF pasta
28 oz crushed tomatoes and your choice of herbs, spices, olive oil, etc. (or ready-made sauce)
10 oz sweet Italian sausage, raw or pre-cooked
8 oz Kite Hill ricotta (or homemade cashew ricotta)
2 Miyoko's Kitchen mozzarellas (or 16 oz pre-shredded vegan mozzarella, or homemade soy mozz)
Several handfuls of baby spinach or chopped adult spinach

Equipment

Oven
Stove with two burners
Can opener
Two pots
A pan if you're browning raw sausage; a cutting board and knife if you're chopping up cooked sausage
Wooden spoons
9" x 13" baking dish
Aluminum foil
Rubber or silicone spatula

( Directions )