Tuesday Night Pasta

Tonight was a busy night. I posted my first full comic and it didn’t fit the screen correctly. Even when I import the largest photo size allowable in Blogger you can’t read all the captions and most of the detail seems to be lost. This snafoo in my well fed chemist comic plan was a bit of a bummer, but it didn’t seem to effect the tasty dinner we eventually enjoyed at the end of the day.
After work I came home with intentions of picking up my forgotten running shoes, but wound up snacking on some blue corn chips and bean dip while I prepared for an eventual dinner. I sliced an eggplant into thin medallions, added a generous amount of salt, and covered the slices with a plate that was weighed down with several bags of dried beans. This process will help to remove some of the bitterness from the eggplant. I also cleaned and sliced, lengthwise, several handfuls of green beans.
From there I picked up Mike from work, picked up a birthday cake for Sarah, and stopped by my mom’s where we hung out for about a half an hour. Then all three of us returned downtown in order to celebrate the birthday of the lovely, talented and always hilariously informative Sarah of Sarah’s Books, Used and Rare. Sarah rents the second floor of my mother’s building and Mike rents the third floor. My mom, Sarah and Mike officially inhabit the coolest building in all of Central Maine. Once songs were sung and cake was had (but not by yours truly-not only is there wheat and dairy in there, but there’s sugar…eek!), we drove back to my mom’s house in order for me to finish a blog post. We still don’t have internet at our new home, so I need to catch the internet where I can. I would do this at work, but my school has some serious filtering in effect and all things blog are strictly prohibited.
When we finally arrived back at the homestead, it was time for something quick, easy and filling. In other words, it was time for some PASTA. Make that brown rice pasta: wheat free and somewhat whole grain. I rinsed, drained and patted dry the eggplant I had previously set up to drain. Into the cast iron pan and along with a generous portion of olive oil went the eggplant, now sliced into thin strips. Then about 7 or 8 cloves of minced garlic went into the pan. Finally I added the green beans along with some water and balsamic vinegar and covered to cook. Before the green beans were completely cooked, I added some very small cubes of firm tofu to the mixture. Between the eggplant, the olive oil and the tofu, this meal was shaping up to be quite rich and “meaty”. The pasta I decided to cook was a package of brown rice fusilli. When the pasta was al dente I drained and rinsed the noodles with lots of cold water. When the eggplant/green bean mixute was ready, I tossed the pasta and vegetables together with a little bit of extra olive oil. I topped the entire dish with chopped walnuts.
The carrot/cucumber salad was simple and a lovely light side dish to the heavy pasta dish. I thinly sliced one peeled and seeded cucumber. I also thinly sliced three medium carrots. I tossed these vegetables with the juice from ¾ a lemon, a large pinch of sea salt, ½ a minced hot pepper and 1-2 Tbs of olive oil.
Mike and I ended the meal absolutely stuffed to the gills.