Eggplant Salad Toasts

Amazing! I love eggplant, but don't make it much. I really liked this approach - oven roasting. The eggplant didn't soak up so much oil (only what you tossed it with), and it developed a really nice flavor.

I decided to serve this over pasta (penne) instead of toast. To make it go a bit further. I also roasted (in a separate smaller pan) a diced red bell pepper and 3 T minced shallots. This added some sweetness to the dish.

I used a nice greek feta, and probably used 150% of what the recipe called for - it melted a bit and added great salty notes. Both kids wolfed it down and were disappointed when it was gone.

For us - served 3 people - and took 60 minutes start to finish.

I did not actually make the toasts.

Instead I used the base recipe here to create a sauce to toss with pasta. I doubled the amount of every ingredient to make enough sauce for a pound of pasta. The toasts were supposed to be rubbed with garlic, so I added chopped garlic (doused with EVOO) to the roasting eggplant about halfway through the 25-30 minute roasting time.

The flavor of the sauce that resulted (a combo of roasted eggplant, roasted garlic, feta cheese, a couple of scallions, and a dash or two of red wine vinegar) was really nice ... subtle. At first I wondered if something was missing, a spice maybe or some tomatoes. But the flavor actually grew on me with every bite and the eggplant got to be the star of the show.