Eggplant Anyone?

There is an awesome restaurant in my home town called The Savory Spoon and man is it DE-LISH! They have a new menu daily that is based on seasonal produce and only use produce that is grown from local farmers. One of my favorites is the Avocado Burger.. just take my word for it or go try it our for yourself! You won't be disappointed. Mama Arlene loooves The Savory Spoon and The Savory Spoon loooves her! She recently started doing Paleo and brought me a Paleo Burger to try at the salon a couple months ago when I couldn't break free for lunch. (They make her dishes paleo style.) I'm not quite sure the requirements for what makes a dish Paleo but I remember there was no bun and lots of veggies. One of which was eggplant that I initially thought was zucchini.. the more I ate it tho I realized that it had to be something else.

That was the first time I had eggplant and it was SOOOOO GOOOOD! Thursday I stopped by Amber's, somehow we had gotten on the subject of it, and BAM!.. I was craving eggplant.

So, I got home, put google to work and stumbled upon this recipe.

I LOVED it and it was crazy how the tofu had the consistency of ricotta cheese. I think I loved it even more that it's only 115 calories! 

Here is what you will need:

Ingredients:

2/3 block of extra-firm tofu
Juice from half a lemon
Dash of salt (I normally opt out of this.. hate salt)
Dash of dried basil
2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 c. tomato sauce
1 large eggplant
2 tbsp. whole-wheat bread crumbs (I used All Natural Panko Breadcrumbs)

Combine the tofu, lemon, salt, dried basil, nutritional yeast, and olive oil to make the "ricotta" mixture. 

Thinly slice the eggplant lengthwise making each slice about 1/4 inch thick.

Spread some of the tomato sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 pan.

Spread the eggplant slices with tomato sauce and tofu ricotta. Roll each eggplant slice and place (seam-side down if possible) in the baking dish. 

**Make sure you do get the pieces thin enough. You will have trouble rolling them.

Top with the remainder of the sauce, tofu ricotta, and bread crumbs. Bake at 350* for 30 minutes.

I didn't have any spinach but I did have some left over Couscous and steamed veggies that I added to my dish. I probably should have just stuck to the main dish. It was so filling!

The only thing different I may do next time is add some seasoning to the eggplant. Not sure what tho... any suggestions??