Roasted Eggplant and Red Pepper Sauce

I love eggplant, but I always cook it the same way (saute it), so it gets to be a little boring.  In an effort to find a different way to cook it, I scoured magazines and found nothing.  Well, that's not true.  All the recipes I found were for frying it, which isn't what I wanted to do.  So maybe I was being picky?

Instead, I decided to chop it up and roast it with red peppers and onions.  I was just going to toss it over some pasta, when I decided to blend half of it with some juice from canned tomatoes.  Then I put the blended portion into a saucepan with the rest of the canned tomatoes, added some spices, and cooked it.  It came out great!

After you check out the recipe, be sure to check out my giveaway here, which ends tomorrow night! 

Roasted Eggplant and Red Pepper Sauce
Ingredients:
1 medium sized eggplant, peeled and chopped
2 red bell peppers, washed, seeded and chopped
1/2 sweet onion, sectioned into 8 or so sections
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes (mine had garlic, basil and oregano in it)
1 tsp sugar (if necessary to sweeten the sauce)
Optional:
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
fresh parsley for garnish

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400 F and allow oven to preheat while you chop the veggies
• Spread chopped veggies out over a cookie sheet and season with salt and pepper.  Drizzle with about 1T-2T olive oil, making sure the veggies are coated.  Place cookie sheet in oven for about 15-25 mins or until the veggies are soft.
• Meanwhile, open tomatoes and empty tomatoes and juice into saucepan.
• After veggies are done cooking, allow to cool slightly.  In a blender, add 3-4T of the tomato juice.  Add about 1/2 of the cooked veggie mixture.  You may need to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender.  Place the remaining half of the cooked veggies in the sauce pot with the diced tomatoes. 
• Blend the veggies until they reach your desired consistency (mine were a little chunky).  And add the blended veggies to the tomato/veggie sauce. 
• Season the tomato/veggie sauce with the basil and oregano if desired.  Add sugar if needed. Cook about 10 minutes to warm through.  Serve over pasta!