Pre-heat the oven to 175°C. Put the sliced eggplants and zucchini on two large baking trays lined with baking paper. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with pepper. Put in the oven for 15 minutes.
Heat a large non-stick frying pan on high heat. Add the olive oil, onions and garlic and sauté for 6-8 minutes. Make a tomato based sauce by adding the tomato paste, mixed herbs, salt and water to a bowl and set aside for now. Add the broccoli and the ends of the eggplants to a food processor and pulse until the mixture has a bread crumb consistency (if you don’t have a food processor you can cut it but make sure it if very finely diced).
Add the broccoli mix to the frying pan and cook for 2 minutes. Add the paprika powder and stir then add the tomato sauce and mix well. Cook for another 2 or so minutes until all the flavours are incorporated. Do another taste test and if you’re happy, turn off the heat and set this aside in a large bowl. Don’t wash the frying pan.
In the same frying pan add the spinach and a drizzle of olive oil until and cook the spinach until it has wilted and reduced significantly in size. Set aside. Add the remaining ricotta ingredients (tofu, rice milk, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and salt) to a blender or food processor and pulse until it becomes creamy but remains thick. Transfer the ‘ricotta’ cheese to a large bowl and add the wilted spinach. Mix well and set aside.
Now the fun part, it’s time to assemble the lasagne. In a baking dish add a ladle full of the red sauce and spread it at the bottom of the pan. You don’t need much, just enough to prevent the eggplant layer from sticking to the bottom. Add half of the sliced eggplants and cover with a third of the red sauce. Add half of the ricotta cheese and repeat this process one more time (+ eggplant + red sauce + ricotta cheese). On the last layer of ricotta cheese, arrange the sliced zucchini in a roughly even layer. Spread the remaining red sauce on the top and put the dish into the oven. Bake the lasagne for 20 minutes at 175°C. As hard as it is to resist, allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.
