Pasta with Tomato, Eggplant & Zucchini

Pasta and rice: the two staples in our household. Pasta for him, rice for me.

To me, pasta used to equal poor college student who was on a budget and thus would make spaghetti for dinner most days of the week. Luckily, I eventually learned that pasta could be made into a wonderful gourmet-like meal.

Taking a few tips that I picked up from the Barilla demo at the Taste of Atlanta, I compiled a few of my favorite flavors together for this simple & fresh, yet amazingly flavorful pasta dish.

Oven dried tomatoes have become my favorite way to eat tomatoes in the fall & winter since the dehydrating of the tomatoes really brings out the tomato’s flavor. The tomatoes than you can find during cold weather are pretty devoid of flavor, and since it’s tough for me to avoid eating tomatoes during these next few months, oven drying them has been a great solution.

Using the same oven drying method as the oven dried tomatoes, you can make vegetarian “bacon” from eggplant. I had tried making eggplant bacon before, but ended up with hopelessly burnt veggie strips. But, by turning the oven to a lower temperature, the eggplant is able to dehydrate instead of baking and burning.

After the tomatoes and eggplant are dried, toss them into the saucepan to make the pasta sauce. Make sure to under cook the pasta by about 2 minutes so that you can toss it in with the sauce to finish cooking, and to infuse the sauce flavor into the pasta.

When I make pasta at home, I usually like to use different types of pasta for me and Paul. I’m partial to spaghetti and Paul’s favorite type of pasta is penne. Either one will work great with this recipe.

Do you have a favorite type of pasta? Mine is spaghetti, there’s just something that I really enjoy about twirling the noodles with my fork.

Eggplant Bacon
1 eggplant, sliced into very thin slices (about 1/2 cm thick)
1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Let’s cook:
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon salt over eggplant slices, and set aside for about 10 minutes. The salt will draw the moisture out from the eggplant and help to reduce the bitterness.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Rinse the salt off of the eggplant slices and pat dry. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl and rub onto the eggplant slices. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and then bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes, or until the eggplant slices turn golden brown. Make sure to not burn.

Remove from the oven and slice into small pieces for cooking in the below pasta.

Pasta with Tomato, Eggplant & Zucchini (serves 2)

Pasta of your choice, 2 servings worth according to package
extra virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 zucchini, sliced into thin slices
Oven dried tomatoes, from 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 eggplant, made into eggplant bacon
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shaved

Let’s Cook:
Bring a big pot of water to a boil, cook the pasta according to the package directions.

Saute onion and garlic in a large skillet with 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil for 2 minutes. Then add the zucchini to the skillet, and saute for another 2-3 minutes. Add the the eggplant and tomatoes to the skillet and saute for another 2-3 minutes.

Drain and add the pasta to the skillet with the sauce. Mix and let cook for about 2 minutes.

Top with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese just before serving.