Greek Inspired Pasta Sauce over Cabbage & Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I saw a really intriguing post on /r/cooking for eggplant "noodles" last week.  I am in the process of trying to give up pasta and white flour products in general (why did a lone bugle playing Taps start playing softly in my head...) and figured this would be a terrific substrate replacement for a hefty sauce.  When thinking of eggplant I think of Chinese and Greek food, so I set out to find a dense pasta topper with one of the two cuisines in mind. I landed at allrecipes.com and a Greek pasta sauce.  I had to make very minimal changes to get this where I wanted it to be flavor- and calorie-wise so below is my version.

The sauce came out fanfrakingtastic... really an exceptional find.  Full of flavor, great texture, and very filling.  You could eat this in a bowl as a stew if you so desire.  That is the good news.

The bad news, however, is that the eggplant pasta SUCKED.   I am about to post over in the Cookit thread and share the information that I used a lot of salt - as in, at an epic scale equal to an amount more suited to the process of creating funazushi.  And while I am tongue in cheek about it this morning (and in retrospect feel like a complete noob), last night I was seriously frustrated.  No amount of rinsing, or soaking and rinsing, was getting the salt level down to an edible level.  So I scrubbed it.   Why yes, that is, in fact, giant kosher sea salt crystals that my eggplant is drowning in.

Luckily I had a head of unclaimed cabbage in the fridge (I plan my meals 3-5 days in advance and had just gone shopping for the entire week) leftover from last week.  I sliced about half the head into thin strips, and popped the pile in the microwave for a minute and a half.  The cabbage came out perfectly al dente and about half-steamed.  I am happy to report that it was the perfect accompaniment to the sauce.  I actually think the cabbage ended up being a better match than the eggplant would have been, or that real pasta could have lived up to (Shush. Let a girl dream).

Greek Inspired Pasta Sauce over Cabbage 
1 small yellow onion, diced
6 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 TBS water or vegetable broth
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 8oz can tomato sauce (no added sugar)
2 TBS capers
15 Kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
3 TBS Balsamic vinegar
2-4 tsp crushed red pepper (to taste)
S&P to taste
1 oz per serving of crumbled light feta cheese

Spray a large skillet with cooking spray, add onion and water/broth. Cook until it starts to turn translucent.  Add garlic and cook an additional minute.  Add the rest of the ingredients, except feta.  Let simmer for a minimum of 30 mins.  Meanwhile, slice the cabbage into thin strips and microwave for 1.5 mins with a small amount of water.  Ladle a hearty amount of sauce over cabbage, and top with 1oz of light feta per serving.

Makes about 4 c of sauce, 119 kcals per cup.  Light feta adds 35 kcal per oz.  Cabbage is about 13 kcal per cup.


Roasted Brussels Sprouts
1 lb Brussels Sprouts
1/2 lemon
s& p to taste

Toss everything to coat.  Add to a casserole dish that has been treated with cooking spray.  Bake for 30 mins until the sprouts start to brown.  Don't do what I did and leave them in the oven after turning it off or else they dry out and look yucky but still taste awesome.

Eric's Dinner : half a pound of breaded chicken strips from the Safeway deli