Week 9: Curried Eggplant With Tomatoes and Basil

Vegetable ingredients: Eggplant, tomatoes, chickpeas.


I feel I'm running out of vegetables that I like. Or at least don't dislike. A student recommended recipes published by the magazine Real Simple, so I gave their website a try. I didn't really find many appealing (to me, anyway) vegetarian recipes. In the end, I decided on Curried Eggplants with Tomatoes and Basil, mainly because I have never cooked a dish with eggplants (I think). Getting adventurous, right?

Ingredients

• 1 cup white basmati rice

• kosher salt and black pepper

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 onion, chopped
(love pre-chopped onions!)

• 2 pints cherry tomatoes, halved
(very expensive at Whole Foods, $8 or so, so I settled on a large can of diced tomatoes instead -- not sure if that helped or harmed the dish, but it cut down on prep time) 

• 1 eggplant (about 1 pound, cut into 1/2 inch pieces)

• 1 1/2 teaspoons 
curry powder

• 1  15.5 ounce can chickpeas, rinsed
(it took me a while at Whole Foods to figure out that chickpeas = garbanzo beans, which tells you all you need to know about my culinary talents)

• 1/2 cup fresh basil
(basil really made a difference!)

• 1/4 cup plain low-fat-yogurt, preferably Greek (I used 1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt)

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, combine the rice, 1 ½ cups water, and ½ teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Stir the rice once, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 18 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes.
3. Stir in the tomatoes, eggplant, curry powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
4. Add 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until eggplant is tender, 12 to 15 minutes.
5. Stir in the chickpeas and cook just until heated through, about 3 minutes.
6. Remove the vegetables from heat and stir in the basil. Fluff the rice with a fork. Serve the vegetables over the rice with yogurt, if using.

Verdict: 6/10


My family found it "vegetably," but I quite liked it (more than I had expected, eggplants are not really my thing, they look better than they taste). It was easy enough to prepare and would have served 4 (as stated in the recipe). My daughter didn't eat any of it, no, she ate a single chickpea and then frowned. Ah well. We enjoyed the leftovers the next day, when it was more like a stew. I forgot to take a picture, but the recipe website (linked above) has a pretty accurate one. It seems like something one could take to a potluck.