#8 Eggplant Rollatini

For Dinner I Eggplant Rollatini from the Native Foods Cookbook. This was a lengthy process. I had to make tofu ricotta, pumpkin seed pesto, and sauteed tempeh patties. I choose to make it on a day when I wasn't in a rush and plenty of time.

 I'll start with the pesto because that's what I made first...the recipe called for a tablespoon of salt. Yikes! I followed the directions even though I didn't want to put that much salt. In the end it was too much salt!!! Even Sean, the salt lover of the house, said it was a tad salty. 

 Next, I made the tofu ricotta. This was delish!! I plan to eat the leftovers in a sandwich. I think this is my new tofu ricotta recipe. 

 I sauteed the tempeh using sunflower oil and the simple deglaze recipe from the cookbook. This was the first time I've cooked tempeh with the deglaze and it was amazing. I kept snacking on it while I was cooking. 

 The eggplant was where I ran into a little problem. . . I sliced the eggplant on a mandolin to keep them all uniform and "sweat" the slices in a colander. When I tried sautéing the slices, the slices started to fall apart because of the seeds. I decided to lay all the slices on a cooking tray, spray them with oil and then broil them instead. This ended up being a total time saver as well! When they were cool enough to handle, I started to make to the rolls. This was actually easy! 

Inside each roll is the tofu ricotta and a few cubes of tempeh.

 The recipe suggested serving it over rice- but that sounded weird to me so I served it with angel pasta and steamed broccoli. This was a really good dinner. It also looked beautiful. I would make this again if I was looking to impress!