If you love vegetables, you will LOVE this dish. Oven roasted eggplant, mushrooms, olives and tomatoes bring out an intense flavor for this Seduction Meal. This garlic infused vegetable medley can be served over polenta or pasta as in the recipe below.
Mediterranean Pasta
- 1lb of your favorite pasta, I used Gragnanese
- 5 baby eggplants, cut into 1/2 inch slices and cut in half
- 9 large button mushrooms, quartered
- ¼ cup of olive oil
- 2 cloves of crushed garlic for the vegetables
- 2 large tomatoes, quartered and cut in half lengthwise
- 1 cup of pitted Kalmata olives
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- ½ cup olive oil
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed for the olive oil sauce
- red pepper flake
- ¼ cup of white wine
- ¼ tsp coarse sea salt
- freshly grated black pepper
- ¼ cup of fresh Parmesan cheese
- freshly grated Parmesan cheese over each dish
Preparing Vegetables
Preheat oven 300. Cook mushrooms in
a skillet with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tbsp
of butter, add salt and pepper. Cook until all liquid is absorbed about
5 mintues. Place all vegetables (tomatoes, whole Kalmata olives, and
eggplant) in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup of oil and crushed garlic and mix with
your hands. Add the mushrooms. Place vegetables evenly on a cooking
sheet. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook all vegetables for 45 minutes
to 1 hour until eggplant is soft.
Cook pasta in water with salt. Cook al dente and drain
Mixing it all together
Place
in large pot (the same one pasta was cooked in) over medium-high heat,
add 1/2 cup of olive oil, crushed garlic and pepper. Cook until garlic
is soft. Add pasta and Parmesan cheese, mix thoroughly. Add white wine
and toss in all vegetables. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes. Place on a
large serving dish. Top with freshly grated cheese.
