Pasta Siciliana

I want to share with you one easy recipe I brought with me from South Italy. I spent some time living in south region of Italy - Calabria. Main food ingredient in Calabria - Eggplant. Sure Sicilia and Calabria different regions of Italy, but still really close to each other :))

Pasta Siciliana

16-10 oz. of whole wheat pasta as pennie or other short pasta, cooked al dente

2 eggplants, thinly sliced less than half inch

28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes plain or with basil

1 medium onion, sliced

2 gloves of garlic chopped or minced

1 Tbs of dried basil

1-1 1/2 cup shredded light mozzarella cheese

salt, pepper

First of all we need to prepare red sauce for our pasta. In large skillet heat over medium/high heat 2 Tbs of olive oil, add onion and fry stirring occasionally till light golden, add garlic and fry another minute. Reduce heat till medium add can of tomatoes. Stir everything together add 1 Tbs of basil and salt it by your taste. I usually try my sauce for salt, sometimes sauce taste for me too sour and I add a little bit of sugar, just about 1 Tbs or less. It's all depends how sour my sauce taste to me. Cover skillet with sauce and let it simmer about 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally. You can also use this sauce for your pasta. Serve it on the top of pasta with parmesan cheese. You can make this sauce with meat as ground beef or turkey and then it'll already Balonese sauce.

Preheat oven to 350F. Cover baking form with oil. But on the buttom of form part of red sauce about 1/3 part from whole amount. On the top of sauce put layer of pasta. Pour 1/2 cup of cheese over the pasta. On the top of pasta put sliced eggplants. On the top of eggplants put about 1/2 amount of left sauce. Here is interesting moment, it's all depends on how much red sauce you like in your pasta. I like a lot, therefore I use all sauce I cooked for this dish. You can use less If you don't like much sauce in pasta. Pour remaining cheese over the sauce. You can pour some fresh chopped parsley or basil on the top of cheese, so your Pasta Siciliana will look more pretty. Put pasta in preheated oven and bake about 30-35 minutes.

This is not my best picture of this pasta and also
not best cooking time, but I just want to show you

how it suppose to look like.

You can also make two layers instead of one, as I did. I like this dish also, because if you even put more sauce or more pasta or more eggplant it all the time will taste good. If you have left sauce you can use as I told before for your pasta or for other dishes which require red sauce as ingredient.

- Tatti