Entree: Curry Vegetables and Tofu Collard Green Rolls with Spicy Red Pepper Tomato Sauce

This is the most time-intensive entree I’ve made so far (one hour just to prepare and about 20 minutes of baking!) but it is also the most delicious dinner I have ever prepared!

It is truly incredible!!

I was watching “Giada at Home” on Food Network yesterday morning and was amazed by how original and unique this dish really is…here is Giada’s recipe:
http://www.giadadelaurentiis.com/recipes/785/swiss-chard-rolls-with-wild-and-brown-rice-and-indian-spices

I made a few alterations…

Ingredients:

1 can vegetable broth

Fresh Ginger

1 cups rice & quinoa blend (mine is from costco)

olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 small bunch of green onions, diced

1/2 can of cooked, sliced carrots

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 cup raisins

~6 oz. extra-firm tofu, diced (and dried with paper towels)

2 tsp. curry powder

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 cup light coconut milk (make sure to shake the can extensively before opening)

1 small can of pineapple, drained

salt & pepper

~1/2 bunch of collard greens

1 jar spicy red pepper tomato sauce

Recipe:

Rice:

1. Bring vegetable broth and 3 thin, circular slices of fresh ginger to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan. Once boiled, add rice and quinoa blend. Immediately reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for ~25 minutes or until blend is cooked and tender. Drain if needed. Once cooked, move pan off stove.

Filling:

1. In a medium non-stick skillet, add olive oil and heat to medium-high.
2. Once heated (you can test by adding drops of water to the pan and seeing them dance), add onions. (Original recipe says to add green onions towards the end of cooking everything, but I added the yellow and green onions in the very beginning and it turned out tasty.) Continually stir.
3. Once onions are cooked through (yellow onions almost transparent) add minced garlic and minced ginger to the pan and stir.
4. Next, add raisins, diced & dried tofu.
5. Once incorporated, add curry powder, cumin.
6. Pour the coconut milk all over the mixture, cover the pan, and simmer (a few minutes) until coconut milk is reduced.
7. Add salt, pepper, and pineapple.
8. Stir until everything is incorporated, then take pan off burner.

Rolls:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Bring ~2 cups water with a pinch of salt to a boil in a medium/large saucepan.
3. Lightly grease a large casserole dish with olive oil (I used two smaller casserole dishes).
4. Pour a layer of ~1 cup spicy red pepper tomato sauce into the casserole dish(es). (It is better to have less sauce so it doesn’t take over the dish.)
5. Break off large stems from collard green leaves and rinse in cold water.
6. Each roll is made one at a time. Drop one leaf in the boiling water. Once vivid green & pliable, use tongs to take the leaf out and onto a paper towel.
7. Quickly pat the leaf dry and lay out on a cutting board.
8. Put a scoop of both the rice (leaving behind the large slices of ginger) and the filling.
9. Roll however works best (like a burrito) and place each roll (in a single layer) in the casserole dish on top of the sauce, seam side down.
10. Repeat until you have run out of either the filling or the rice.
11. Pour ~1 cup of spicy red pepper tomato sauce on top of the rolls in your casserole dish(es).
12. Bake casserole dish(es) uncovered at 400 degrees until sauce is boiling (about 20 minutes). The baking will allow the flavors to mix and for everything to come to the same temperature.

VOILA!! Takes about 1.5 hours for the whole dish (hopefully less time after making it more often)…but it is SOOOO worth it.

Tastiest dinner I have ever made!