Howdy! Le Grande Bouche here, with my second-ever food post. But this is my first-ever original recipe that actually worked, so I'm quite proud of myself. Can you believe I actually made this??
This is going to be simple, since I'm a simple guy. (And I basically don't know how to cook, so this post is meant for all of you out there who don't know how to cook either.)
The basic idea is that certain things -- like, say, eggplant and tomatoes -- taste really good roasted. That and pasta is good. Now, let's put these two ideas together and make a roasted-eggplant-and-tomato pasta! (If I can do it, you can do it.) This should take about 15 minutes if you're good and 30 if you're me.
First, chop up some eggplant and little tomatoes (cherry or grape, as you like). I cut the eggplant into circular cross-sections, but do whatever you like: it shrinks and gets pretty mushy when you roast it anyway. Drizzle olive oil liberally over the tomatoes and the eggplant slices, throw on some black pepper and maybe a bit of salt (careful here -- see below). Put these in the oven on some hot temperature. (400, 450, whatever.)
Now: start boiling a pot of water for your pasta. (You'll need this later.) Put in a pinch of salt and some olive oil.
Second, make a sauce: chop up some onions and garlic "to taste" (which means "according to your taste" in foodie-land, apparently, not "for the purpose of tasting"). Throw those in a large pan (I used a wok) with some olive oil and saute them a bit. Maybe add some oregano and black pepper. But don't add any salt, at least not if you're using pre-made pasta sauce (which you probably are, if you're like me and don't know how to cook). Here's why: the pre-made sauce, as I discovered, has a ton of salt in it already, since it's preserved and since apparently American consumers really like salt. So you don't want any more salty. (Really, I generally like salty things, and I had to throw out my first attempt at the sauce because I over-salted. Learn from my mistakes. Of course, if you're not using your own sauce but instead using pureed tomatoes, then salt away.)
Now add your pre-made pasta sauce. (The foodie wifey here says "your favorite marinara sauce." I'm not assuming you have any such intelligent and well-formed opinions on marinara sauces; otherwise, you probably wouldn't need to be getting cooking tips from me.) Put the burner on relatively low so that the whole thing starts to heat up evenly.
Remember that boiling water? It's probably boiling now. Add some pasta to it. I used whole-wheat shells and they were really, really good -- had a toothsome quality and held up well to the roasted flavors. But suit yourself.
Okay, congratulations! You're basically done: if you've done what I told you to do, you've now got (1) a pasta sauce, (2) eggplant and tomatoes roasting, and (3) pasta boiling. Just keep an eye on them and make sure nothing burns and you'll be fine. (I'm assuming you know how to tell when pasta's done. If not, I can't help you.) Once everything's done, combine them all into the large pasta-sauce pan, and maybe add a bit of the pasta water for moisture and flavor.
Here's what it'll look like when you combine the roasted tomatoes and eggplant and the pasta sauce:
Then throw in the pasta, and it'll look like this:
Finally, throw on some green stuff (I used chopped-up arugula because we didn't have any Italian, flat-leaf parsley) and some parmesan cheese. And pour some wine (obviously).
If you're a dude (or anyone, really) who doesn't know how to cook, this will win you mad props. Enjoy!
