Lahmucan (Turkish Pizza)

Ingredients:lahmucan
3 Eggplants, roasted
1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon tamari (or light soy sauce)
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon kirmizi biber, or combination sweet paprika and cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin
handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Dough
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon agave nectar (or other sweetener)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 yeast packet

Directions:
Rinse and dry each eggplant and slice them in half. Score each half in a diamond, cross-hatch pattern. Place all 6 halves on wire roasting rack. Heat oven to 400 degrees and cook for 40 minutes.

While the oven is heating up combine all ingredients in order, in a mixing bowl. Using a mixer on a low setting mix dough until it forms a ball. Cover and set dough aside for 40 minutes while the eggplant roasts.

Let the eggplant cool for about 10 minutes. Add the onion and red pepper along with some water, curry powder and tamari and saute for about 10 minutes. Once the eggplant has cool scoop the inside and place in a food processor along with the tomato paste and kirmizi biber. Puree until ingredients are combined. Add the sauteed onion, red pepper and parsley and pulse to break down. The vegetables shouldn’t be completely broken down, but have some minor chucks.

Once the dough as risen, roll it out and divide into 4 separate pieces. With a rolling pin, roll out each piece of dough to resemble a single serving pizza. Top each piece of dough with the eggplant mixture. Cook each Lahmucan for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Serving Size: 4

Nutritional Facts: 1 Lahmucan
Calories: 463
Total Fat: 2.4 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 588.9 mg
Potassium: 1287.8 mg
Total Carbs: 91.8 g
Protein: 16.5 g

Notes: This was also the second time I made Lahmucan, the first time time from Vegan Magic, which I think lacked flavor. I continued reading other sites and saw a pureed eggplant mixture using assorted spices. Not sure the tamari was needed when sauteing the onion and red pepper. If you are not a curry fan, you could probably do without the powder and not lose much flavor.

You can adjust the amounts of flours to your liking. I do want to try spelt and besan. Lahmucan can be eaten folded up, but with the dough recipe above it was not very pliable and the dough ended up tearing as I ate away.

Source: I pulled this recipe together referencing a few different website including Vegan Magic and Food Network. In the ended I combined what I read into my own recipe.

Eggplant Lasagna

INGREDIENTS:
1 medium or 2 small eggplants
9 lasagna noodles
1 block (14-16 oz) of tofu (I used extra firm)
2 cups spinach
1/4 cup minced garlic
3 cup spaghetti sauce (or your favorite sauce)
8 oz soy cheese (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Boil the lasagna noodles until they are tender.
While the noodles are cooking, cut the eggplant into thin slices.
Place the eggplant slices on pan and broil until the pieces are tender.
While the eggplant is cooking, put the tofu and garlic in a food processor. The mixture should have the consistency of ricotta cheese.
Put a few tablespoons of spaghetti sauce in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish.
Place the three lasagna noodles in the bottom of the pan.
Spread a few more tablespoons of sauce on top of the noodles.
Spread some of the tofu mixture on top of the sauce.
Sprinkle some soy cheese on top of the tofu mixture (optional).
Layer some eggplant on top of the cheese.
Repeat steps until all of the eggplant has been used.
Place the remaining sauce, tofu mixture on top of the last layer of eggplant.
Bake at 350 degrees 15-20 minutes.
Cut the lasagna into 12 equal slices.

SOURCE: SparkRecipes.com