Easy Lunch for One Person (Couscous with Eggplant)

Being alone at midday, I wanted to cook something fast and simple and so this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of couscous
1 medium sized eggplant
1 onion
1 tomato
salt
dry mint
cinnamon
2 tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil
Water


Bring one cup of water to a boil, take it off the fire and add the couscous. Cover the pot and let the couscous do its magic. Peel the eggplant and cut it into four long pieces. Chop the onion and the tomato.



Heat the olive oil in a pot and fry the eggplant and onion until they are a bit golden on the outside, then add half a cup of water, the tomato, salt, mint and cinnamon, turn to low heat, cover and let the vegetables steam for some time. In the meanwhile check back on your couscous and if it already absorbed all the water add salt and a bit of olive oil or butter. When the eggplant is nicely soft and has absorbed the nice flavors of its companions, your food is ready. You could serve this with a bit of Greek yogurt, some slices of cheese or a little salad if you like.


(This last photo I made using some little light that leaked through the window and made the food look nicely dramatic :P )

Delicious Pasta Sauce with Pumpkin

Hello, hello,

Yesterday I made some really tasty pasta sauce out of pumpkin and some other veggies. My husband coincidentally brought home some slices of pizza, so we had a rather Italian day, I'd say. :) Be sure to only boil the pasta once the sauce is almost ready, because in my case the pasta got cold, waiting for the sauce to finish. OK, so here it goes:

What you need (for two people):

Pasta of your choice
2 1/2 - 3 cups of pumpkin, peeled and cut into cubes.
1 onion
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
2 tomatoes
2-3 garlic segments
a bit of ginger
Herbs of the Provence, or other dry herbs
A few leaves of fresh rosemary
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of cumin
1-2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
Some water

How you make it:


Chop the vegetables (the onions and peppers should be rather finely chopped). Heat the oil in a pot or pan and fry the onion and pumpkin for a bit later adding peppers and tomato.


Add enough water for the pumpkins to boil nicely, but don't put too much, as this is not supposed to be a soup. Anyway, the pumpkins absorb a lot of water, so don't worry if it looks like too much. If all the water dries out before the pumpkin is ready just add some more. When the sauce boils turn the heat to lower medium letting it boil around peacefully.


After some time add the chopped garlic and ginger, the herbs and the spices and let it boil until the pumpkin is soft enough to be easily mashed with a fork (which you should do to some of the pumpkin pieces to give a creamier consistency).


Now your sauce is ready to be served on top of your pasta!
Enjoy and experiment with your own variations of this tasty vegan sauce.