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Eggplant Napoleon

April 12th, 2007 Stumble it!

This recipe has a few surprises. My requirements for dinner included using an eggplant, a red pepper, a stalk of broccoli, and some leftover tofu. This turned out to be really fun and easy, despite the copious amounts of dishes it seemed to leave me with. I’m sure I could have made it in a more organized fashion had I not been making it up as I went along.

The sauce you see is not tomato, it’s simply a single red bell pepper, pureed raw, with a pinch of salt. I need to remind myself every once in a while that it’s not necessary to cook every single vegetable I want to eat. It added a nice sweetness to balance out the salty roasted eggplant and sun-dried tomatoes in the couscous. Yup! That’s couscous in there, too!

Can you guess what the green bit on the top is? Pureed, steamed broccoli! This was such a fun way to eat broccoli, I want to buy more immediately so I can blend it up again and use it in odd places. Forgive my enthusiasm, but there’s something about this light, bright green broccoli fluff that makes be a bit giddy.

Eggplant Napoleon
Serves four

Roasted Eggplant
1 Eggplant, sliced into 3/8″ thick rounds
1/2 Cup Olive oil (I know! It’s a lot! Use less if you want!)
1 tsp Salt

Sun-dried Tomato Couscous
1/2 cup Couscous (french - the very tiny kind thats roughly shaped)
1/4 Cup Sun-Dried Tomatoes, sliced in strips
1 Cup Water, boiling

Sauce
1 Red Bell Pepper, seeded and veined
1 pinch to 1/4 tsp salt

Broccoli Fluff
2 Cups Broccoli, rough chopped, steamed
Pepper to taste

1/2 Recipe Tofu Ricotta
1/2 Cup Toasted Pine Nuts

Preheat oven to 425º F.

Rub eggplant slices in salt and oil, place in one layer on a cookie sheet, and bake for 20 minutes. Flip, bake for 10 more minutes, remove from oven.

Meanwhile, place couscous and tomatoes in a small pot with a dribble of vegetable oil. Toast over medium heat until fragrant, add boiling water, cover, reduce heat to low. After 10 minutes, turn off heat. Puree your pepper in a food processor until very smooth. Add salt to taste, set aside. Steam broccoli, puree, add pepper to taste, set aside. Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet. Mix together tofu ricotta, heat in mircowave until hot, set aside.

To assemble

Place a bit of the pepper sauce in the middle of the plate. Add a slice of eggplant on top of that. Add a layer of tofu ricotta and a layer of broccoli fluff. Add another slice of eggplant. Add couscous and broccoli. Add the last slice of eggplant and top with tofu and broccoli. Garnish with toasted pine nuts.

Entry Filed under: fake cheese, pasta, recipe