Vegetarian Eggplant Pasta Recipe

After a heat wave at the end of July, August started off unseasonably cool. Turn off the air conditioning and open the windows cool. Wearing jeans instead of shorts cool. Grabbing a sweater for an after-dinner walk cool. Even turning on the oven and cooking dinner cool.

When my mom brought me an eggplant and some cute sweet peppers from her garden, I decided to hide them in make a pasta dish.  Just because it was cool out doesn’t mean I wanted to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I kept it simple.

• First, I cooked 8 ounces of Barilla Plus penne pasta al dente.
• While that was happening, I cut the peppers into bite sized pieces and cut the eggplant into slightly larger chunks. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and oregano, and sauteed them with a few cloves of garlic until they just started to get soft.
• In a large bowl, I mixed the veggies with a large (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes, added more salt and pepper and garlic powder, and stirred in about 1 ounce of shredded mozzarella cheese.
• Once the pasta was cooked, drained, and rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking process, I added it to the veggie/sauce and stirred gently until everything was well mixed.
• I poured the mixture into a 11 x 14 glass baking dish that I had coated with cooking spray, and sprinkled the top with another 1-2 ounces of shredded mozzarella.
• I covered the dish with foil and baked at 375F for about 30 minutes.

I think next time I will add some Kalamata olives or roasted red peppers for some more punch, but it turned out pretty well.

Do you try to use the oven less when it’s hot?

Do you have a favorite eggplant recipe?