Eggplant Rolls

I am definitely on an eggplant kick, and just have to share this recipe because I honestly can't believe I just made this myself. It's a light dish but left me feeling pleasantly full, and the taste is lingering in my mouth and I am fighting the urge to get a third serving.
I began by preheating the oven at 350 and cutting the eggplant lengthwise in 1/4 inch slices, salted them and put them on a cookie sheet. I put in the oven for 10 minutes, turned the eggplant over and cooked for 5 more minutes.
While the eggplant was cooking I diced the onion and sauteed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and an Italian seasoning blend. Once the onions were translucent I diced the celery and added it to the saute pan and cooked for 5 minutes before adding the tomatoes and butter substitute. I left the sauce to simmer while I made the filling.
I used my Vitamix to cream together the silken tofu, mayonnaise substitute, cream cheese substitute, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and heavily added the Italian seasoning blend.
Once the filling was blended, I began the assembly. I took a slice of eggplant and covered the entire slice with the filling, then added some spinach and rolled it up. I placed the rolls in a 9x13 in baking pan, and poured the marinara sauce over the top. I put the pan back in the oven for ten minutes for the flavors to meld and then let cool. (OK, I didn't actually wait until it was cool, it smelled way too good to wait!)

This is the eggplant slice with the sauce and spinach ready to be rolled up.

Here are all the rolls in the 9x13 pan.

And the rolls with the sauce on top.  YUMMY!!

There was a lot of extra filling which would be PERFECT for a lasagna "ricotta cheese" layer, and extra sauce which was great to spoon on the rolls and save for some quick spaghetti later this week.


Filling
1lb silken tofu
6 tbsp cream cheese substitute (I used Tofutti)
3 tbsp mayonnaise substitute (I used Vegannaise)
6 tbsp nutritional yeast
salt, pepper
3 tbsp italian seasoning blend

Marinara
1 yellow onion
2 celery stalks
1 24 oz crushed tomato
12 oz diced tomato
1 tbsp butter substitute (I like Earth Balance)
2 tsp garlic
salt and pepper