Vegan Paella and Garlic Aioli

We made a delicious vegan paella tonight for dinner. The recipe is from Voluptous Vegan, a fantastic cookbook that caters to entertaining vegan. It is organized in full menus with side dishes and everything. The recipes are not quick, as they involve a few steps but are definitely rewarding. I think I've blogged about this before as I've made this recipe a few times.

Traditional paella usually has shrimp, and/or chicken, and/or sausage and is usually made in a wide shallow pan. We've done a traditional version a few times that we love as well but this vegan paella is even more flavour packed... especially because of the tasty tofu-roasted garlic aioli that tops the dish. (Chris yearning for the paella with sausage kept asking when the chorizio sausage was going in the paella tonight!)

Aioli is a garlicky mayonnaise that contains eggs. In this version, tofu is the base. Sometimes I make this aioli as a dipping sauce for sweet potato fries instead of using mayo.

1 small head of garlic, unpeeled, plus 1 garlic clove, peeled
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt
1 box silken tofu
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Roast the garlic in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 F drizzing some olive oil and sea salt on the garlic before wrapping it up in foil. Afterwards in a food processor, combine the other ingredients and pulse. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skins and then add to the tofu mixture and puree until creamy.

Delicious and pretty easy.