eggplant!!

one vegetable I have always found perplexing is eggplant. I tried to cook it once YEARS ago (before I was even vegan!!) and did it totally wrong, and it was inedible, and ever since then I have avoided trying to cook with it. I love the taste of it, and will eat it when I go out, but that's it! anyway, the other night I went to a friend's house for dinner and she made a baked eggplant dish with tomato sauce. we ate it over penne pasta with herbs, and I could not get over how amazing it was! I asked her what the key to cooking eggplant was, and she said that you needed to soak it in salt water for about 20 minutes.
so, today I went to Trader Joe's and bought an eggplant, a jar of marinara sauce, a bag of sliced mushrooms, and some frozen fire roasted peppers and onions.

I sliced the eggplant and let it sit in a bowl of salt water for about half an hour (my slices were really thick). I then preheated the oven to 400 degrees. to assemble the dish, I spread a thin layer of sauce in an 8x8 baking dish, then layered the eggplant (I slightly overlapped the edges to fit them all in the pan), mushrooms, and peppers, then covered everything with the rest of the sauce. I covered the dish with aluminum foil and baked for about 25 minutes.
while the eggplant was in the oven, I boiled a pot of water to make the pasta.

when the pasta was done I drained it and tossed it with a little bit of olive oil and italian seasoning.
basically, this dish is amazing and I can't wait to start experimenting more with eggplant!!

this meal cost less than $5 to make (all ingredients were bought from Trader Joe's), and makes at least 4 servings!

Spinach Pasta

Spinach Pasta

like always, I'm going to try to promise to get back on track with my recipes! I've been a little short on dough lately so I haven't been creating the most unique meals, but this is something I just whipped up.
I was watching "Everyday Italian" with Giada De Laurentiis (whom I normally CANNOT STAND) and she made a dish similar to this. I like watching her show, since a lot of italian foods can easily be made vegan. she used goat cheese and cream cheese for her sauce, and I obviously omitted the goat cheese. also, she used a few cloves of fresh garlic. I, being the terrible chef, did not have any on hand but I did have some freshly made garlic hummus. because I was omitting the goat cheese, I felt that this would also add more substance to the sauce.

what you need:

• fresh organic baby spinach (I used about 1/2 of a family size bag!)


• 1/2 c soy cream cheese (I used the non-hydrogenated tofutti kind)


• 1/4 c garlic hummus


• 2 c organic whole wheat penne pasta (or whatever shape you have on hand)

cook your pasta according to its directions. in the meantime, divide your spinach into two piles. throw one pile into the food processor along with the hummus and cream cheese. roughly chop the other and set aside until the pasta is done.
once the pasta is done, drain and add it back to your pot. pour the sauce mixture (it should be relatively thick... about the consistency of ranch dressing), and mix in the roughly chopped spinach. enjoy!


I'm starting classes again next week, so my goal this weekend is to make a few meals that I can freeze to have throughout the week. so far on the menu is stuffed shells, pierogies (I made some yesterday and have a ton of filling left!), and an asian tofu stir-fry!