Spaghetti with Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sauce

I am stuffing my gut to the fullest with a mid-afternoon snack of spaghetti with roasted eggplant and tomato sauce, but I am taking a break (to give my stomach time to stretch and expand to the newly arrived food) to let you know how I made it.


I know, I made an eggplant recipe again. Surprise surprise.


Ingredients:


For sauce:

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cans (28-ounce) whole, peeled tomatoes, drained (I didn't drain them, and ended up with a shitload of sauce--next time I still wouldn't drain them, but would use 1 28 oz can and one 14.5 oz can) (oh and another note--as opposed to the 10 minutes simmering time that the recipe called for, I simmered the sauce for at least 45 minutes while dealing with the eggplant--if I were going with the shorter simmering time, I would probably drain the juice because there wouldn't be enough time for the water to cook off)
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For eggplant:

• 2 small (3/4 pound) eggplants, stemmed but not peeled, sliced 1/2" thick (I used a little over a pound of eggplant. I didn't use the skinny ones so I quartered them lengthwise and then sliced them)
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil

For miscellaneous:

• 1 pound dried spaghetti
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, stemmed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino, plus extra for serving
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn

By the way, this isn't all the ingredients. I decided the other ingredients weren't sufficiently photogenic.

Mince 5 garlic cloves (I used 4 because my bulb was becoming very bald) and finely chop 1 onion.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat.  Add in onion/garlic and saute until soft and translucent but not browned, about 7 minutes.

Crush tomatoes with your hand in a large bowl.  Add the tomatoes and juices to the garlic/onion.  

Bring to boil, then lower heat to simmer.  The recipe says to simmer for 10 minutes, but as with most tomato sauce recipes, I let the sauce simmer while I'm doing other things, about 45 minutes.

While the sauce is simmering, prep the eggplant.  Preheat oven to 425 and grease 2 baking sheets.

Cut the eggplant into 1/2" slices (I also quartered/halved my eggplants lengthwise because they were much bigger in the girth department than the skinny Asian eggplants I think the recipe wants you to use).

Place sliced eggplant in bowl and toss with a very generous amount of olive oil, chopped garlic, salt and pepper.  I'm not kidding about the olive oil--you don't want them to be dry before going into the oven. That will lead to sadness.

Lay out in single layer on greased baking sheets.

Roast for about 20 minutes, rotating pans from top to bottom and front to back, and flipping eggplant pieces halfway through.  You want the eggplant to be tender.  I actually ended up lowering the heat in my oven because they were going to "burnt" stage pretty quickly.  Also, for the last 5 minutes, I added the cherry tomatoes, halved.

Cook your pasta, shaving off 1-2 minutes.  Drain pasta and add to pasta sauce, tossing to coat. Cook for 1 minute, or until pasta get to consistency that you like.

Toss in eggplant, tomatoes, Pecorino, and basil leaves.

Toss well and serve, topping each serving with a little extra basil and/or pecorino, if you wish.

Ta-da!