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!

A New Take on Ratatouille

My mom has always made ratatouille in a skillet on the stove.  So I have always made it that way too.  And I have always just used eggplant and zucchini as the "core vegetables" and then added other veggies that I had in the fridge.  Saute that, add some crushed tomatoes, pour it over some pasta, and be done!

Is that how you make it?

I had some lots of tomatoes from my garden and a bunch of eggplant too.  So I decided to make ratatouille to use them up.  I found a different (to me) take on ratatouille and I thought I would give it a try.  I loved the result!  You spend about 15 minutes chopping up the veggies, while at the same time softening the eggplant in a skillet with some garlic and parsley.  Then you just layer everything in a baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.

Yes, the 45 minutes is a little longer than what I usually think is acceptable for a weeknight meal.  But I think some days it is okay to have something in the oven so long.  That was enough time for me and the Toddler to go out and do some weeding!

Ratatouille
recipe from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients:
2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp dried parsley (AFC note: I used a lot of fresh parsley)
1 eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
salt to taste
1 C grated Parmesan cheese
2 zucchini, sliced
1 large onion, sliced into rings
2 C sliced fresh mushrooms
1 green bell pepper, sliced
2 large tomatoes, chopped (AFC note: I sliced mine!)

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat bottom and sides of a 1.5qt casserole dish with i T olive oil.
• Heat remaining olive oil in skillet over medium heat and saute garlic until lightly browned.   Add parsley and eggplant and cook until eggplant is soft (about 10 minutes).  Season with salt to taste.  (AFC note: I sauteed the eggplant and parsley first, then added the garlic for about 1 minute).
• Spread eggplant mixture on bottom of casserole dish.  Sprinkle with some cheese.  Layer the remaining veggies on top, sprinkling cheese and salt between each layer.
• Bake in oven for about 45 minutes

I served the veggies over pasta that had been tossed with some pasta sauce.  It was really good!

P.S. I'm linking up to Lil Pink Pocket's blog hop and the linky party at Serenity Now!