Eggplant Roll-Ups (almost)

Anytime I'm putting a menu together for our weekly meals, I try to go with the 'use what you have' philosophy.  I had a half a container of ricotta cheese that I wanted to use up, so I said to myself, self, you should make something with eggplant.  And then myself said, that's a genius idea!  So eggplant roll-ups went on the menu.

So much for that idea.

At 3:00 today, I got everything out to start a tomato sauce.  I got it going on the stove and then pulled my eggplant out of the fridge.  Ugh.  Half of it was squishy.  Double ugh.  I stood there staring at the stupid mushy thing trying to decide what to do.  I peeled it and examined the damage.  Half of it was still good, so I ended up chopping it up and throwing it in with the tomato sauce.  If I had known I was going to be making a tomato-eggplant sauce, I would have taken pictures.  But I didn't.  So I didn't.

Once you've read through the entire disaster and decide you'd like to recreate my mistake, you'll need some diced onion, some minced garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, whatever seasonings you normally put in your marinara and an eggplant.  Or half of one.

I sauteed the onion in some olive oil until it was softened, added the garlic, cooked it until it was fragrant and then dumped in the diced tomatoes.  I let that do its thing for five minutes or so and then added the tomato sauce and my seasonings.  At that point is when I realized my dinner was ruined, so that's when you would add your chopped eggplant.  I let mine simmer for about an hour and a half.

Here's what I ended up with.

I was planning on serving pasta with the roll-ups, so I figured I could use everything I was going to use, just in a different form.  Anytime I make a chunky pasta sauce, I tend to lean toward chunky noodles.  You may use whatever noodles you like.

I went with rigatoni.

I cooked the noodles to al dente and drained them.

Transfer to a bowl and add some ricotta cheese.  I had approximately 3/4 of a cup.

Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and stir everything to combine.

At this point, I couldn't decide if I wanted to mix the tomato-eggplant sauce in now or layer it in a baking dish.  I went with layering just for the sake of making a decision.

Transer half of your noodles to a baking dish.

Pour half of the tomato sauce on top.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Rinse and repeat.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Garnish with fresh basil.

We had ours with a mixed green salad and bread.

Here it is on my plate.

I'm linking up to Tasty Tuesdays over at 33 Shades of Green and What I Made Wednesday over at Sweet Peas and Bumblebees.