Our Take on Palak Paneer

Last week, I came home and Greg had made a delicious vegan tikka pizza, which consisted of a yummy tomato sauce and tofu. When both of us tried the tofu, the first thing that came to our minds was that it had such a similar consistency as paneer - Indian cheese. We were immediately inspired and dedicated to creating a vegan version of Palak Paneer (a creamy Indian spinach curry with cheese), and though we didn't master the exact flavor, our dish still came out delicious. It may seem complicated, but it's super simple - you'll make great use of your food processor.

Vegan Palak Paneer

Tofu and Marinade
1/2 block extra firm tofu, drained and pressed (see Greg's tip), cut into 1-inch cubes
1 medium-large tomato
1.5 TBSP plain soymilk
1 clove garlic
a generous amount of salt and pepper

Place tofu cubes in a bowl. Puree the marinade ingredients in a food processor or blender until only small lumps remain, and mix in with tofu. Cover the bowl and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes or longer.

Once the tofu is done marinating, you can start working on the rest of the dish. Here are the ingredients you will need:

1 10 oz. package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 onion, diced
1.5 cups soymilk
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp coriander
1.5 tsp cumin
1 TBSP curry paste (we used a Roland's yellow curry paste - cheap and vegan!)

Start browning the tofu cubes (without the excess marinade - you'll use that soon) in a little bit of oil over medium heat. The cubes will take about 15 minutes to brown on all sides.
In a food processor, blend spinach with leftover marinade from the tofu.
In a separate pan, sautee the onion over medium heat until it turns translucent and add in the spinach-marinade mixture. Add in all the spices, and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Slowly pour and mix in the soymilk. You want the spinach curry to be liquidy but still relatively thick.
Add in the tofu and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice (we used basmati).

Vegan Cabbage Rolls

We got cabbage from the farm this past Monday and decided to get a little creative with it. I (Tamar) have not really worked with cabbage much, except one time in college when I needed lettuce and bought cabbage by mistake (that may have been in my pre-glasses days, or so I hope). Needless to say, our cabbage rolls came out delicious; Greg made a peanut butter-coconut sauce to put on top, which perfected the dish.

Cabbage Rolls (vegan)

10 outer leaves of cabbage
2 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 onion
1/2 cup chopped vegan meat or tofu (we used morningstar chicken strips, which I actually think might not be vegan... oops)
1 clove garlic
~1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 carrot, cut into short sticks
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 TBSP hoisin sauce (an Asian barbecue-ish sauce)

To prepare the cabbage:

People have all sorts of tricks for getting the leaves off the cabbage (freezing the cabbage, sticking the whole this in a pot of water, etc.), but we were lazy and wanted to find a way around it all. So with some determination, we ran a knife across the bottom of each leaf we intended to pull off, right near the core, and used a sort of "popping" method to get it off by pushing from the bottom up.

Heat up a large pot with a few cups of water and bring to a roaring boil. For each leaf, stick it in the boiling water for about 2 minutes; remove it with a slotted spoon and immediately run under cold water to stop the cooking process. Set aside so that the leaves dry off, or wipe with towel.

To prepare the carrot sticks:

Place the sticks in about a TBSP or two of canola oil in a frying pan. Stir, coating each piece with oil and cover for about 5-6 minutes until the carrots get softer, but are still crunchy.

To prepare the filling:

Sautee the tofu/fake meat/whatever with the onion and garlic for about 2-3 minutes. Add in the rice, and occasionally stir for another minutes. Pour in the soy sauce and hoisin sauce, and taste to make sure you don't need any additional seasoning. Stir in chopped cilantro.

To assemble the rolls:

Place 1-2 large scoops of the filling in the center and top with 2 or 3 carrot sticks. Fold in the top and bottom (it's a little tricky with the vein toward the bottom, so cut some of it off if necessary) and roll the leaf, making sure to tuck in the edges as you go. Very burrito like, only smaller.