Veganized Sephardic Spinach and Chickpea Casserole #vegan #Kosher #pareve

Spinach and Chickpea Casserole

    Our son is flying in from Seattle tonight for the holidays so I made him his favorite dish that he's never tasted. My wife and I were watching a PBS documentary, "Hugs and Knishes", discussing Jewish cooking from different parts of the world.  This spinach casserole captured my attention.  I watched the ingredients including oil, eggs and multiple cheeses come together and I was thinking: "I bet I can veganize that!"

So I did. No oil, high fiber, tons of protein.

Recipe

2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach
or 1 pound of fresh spinach - cooked and drained
1 can of chickpeas - drained
1 box of extra firm tofu - drained
2 cups of nutritional yeast
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
0.5 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
2 pinches of ground pepper

In a non stick pan caramelize the onions. Add the spinach and garlic. Cook until most of the moisture is gone. In a blender combine the tofu, 1.75 cups of nutrtional yeast, allspice, salt and pepper. Put the chickpeas in a mixing bowl and stir all the ingredients together.
(I prepared my baking dish wth a little canola oil then wiped it out with paper towel, but you can use parchment paper.)  Put it all in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, spread it evenly and sprinkle the top with 0.25 cup of nutritional yeast. Bake it at 350 for 1 hour. Put it under the broiler for 5 minutes. Let it cool. I cut it in half and stacked it then refrigerated it to let it firm up. Then, tomorrow when your son gets in, you can heat it up and feed him something healthy that he didn't know he'd love (I hope).