Eggplant

VEW

Eggplant: (n.) A vegetable that inspires apathy, boredom and even fear as it begins to show up in increasingly larger quantities in my farm share.

This is one thing I haven't loved seeing in my farm share basket. There are some people who can make eggplant taste good, even interesting, but I am not one of them. I usually find it bland and soggy at best. Tonight as I trolled the crisper for ideas for dinner, I had 3 white eggplants glaring at me at if to say, are you really going to let us go the way of that first batch of Swiss chard?

No, I decided, I am not. I will conquer you! Of course this conquering was occurring right around 5pm with 2 children getting more ornery by the minute, desperately needing something to eat. So I tried this recipe for Rigatoni with Eggplant, Tomato and Ricotta despite the fact that it sounded utterly bland.

I was wrong.

It was actually quite tasty. My uber-finicky eaters even ate it. Go figure. I made it as written using a white eggplant and I used linguine because it's what I had. It worked just fine. If I were to make it again, I would toss it with freshly made pasta, and perhaps toss in a mixture of fresh herbs in addition to the basil that is called for. If you give it a try, note that the recipe is for 2 and didn't make much, so you may want to double it.