Mushroom Stroganoff and Stuffed Eggplant

Ready for a vegetarian-heavy meal? Here it comes! Reveling in the chance to cook vegetarian again, I made altogether too much food. The "main" part of the meal, if you could even choose between the two, was a Mushroom Stroganoff. I took the classic dish as an inspiration and base but made a vegetarian version that also removed the fat typical in this famous comfort food. Although there was no meat, however, there are not a lot of vegetables in the pasta dish either. I chose to make a stuffed eggplant as well to remedy that problem. That delicious, 100% vegetable dish rounded out the meal very well!

Each of these courses could stand alone for dinner. Feel free to make them separately or together if you want lots of leftovers. I packaged both up and took them to work for the rest of the week. Just come hungry if you are not going to follow that path!

Mushroom Stroganoff
Boil water and cook your favorite pasta! Especially good ones for this dish are your basic egg noodles or my personal choice, bow ties. As the water is boiling you can move on and continue with the next steps.

Saute a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium to medium low heat. Add six cloves of fresh minced garlic. Saute for two minutes. Add 1/2 of a large Vidalia onion and 1.5 packages of sliced mushrooms. I used part baby Portobello and part basic Pennsylvania White. You can use whatever kind of mushroom that you most prefer, but typically stroganoff pairs best with simpler, more basic varieties such as the ones I used. Stir the onions, mushrooms, and garlic so that they don't burn and cook for 7-8 minutes or until the onions and mushrooms are wilting and soft. You want to make sure they are well cooked before moving along to the next step so add a few minutes if you need to in the process.

Add some ground black pepper to your mixture and stir. Add 1 16 oz container of fat free sour cream. Add 1-2 tablespoons of ketchup. Stir well so that the ketchup and sour cream blend and become smooth and sauce-like. Make sure the onions, mushrooms, and garlic are well coated and mixed throughout. Reduce heat to medium low if it is not there already and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring every couple minutes. Your sauce should be very smooth and off-white or slightly pink off-white in color.

Add the cooked, drained pasta to the pan. Stir well until the pasta is well coated with the sauce and mixed evenly throughout. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Stuffed Eggplant
And now it's time for the eggplant! I more or less made this up as I went along and wasn't entirely sure what to expect. In the end, it was delicious! And the best part? There are basically unlimited variations that are available so feel free to customize and experiment with the following recipe to your heart's content.

Preheat the oven to 400. Cut your eggplant in half. Make some scores in it by making 2 or 3 "x"s in the cut side. Put the cut sides down on a greased baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes. (The eggplant should be soft when it is done.)

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add 3 cloves of fresh minced garlic, 1/2 a package of sliced mushrooms, and diced onions. I used about 1/2 cup of diced onions, or maybe a little more, but you should feel free to adjust to your own taste. Stir to keep from burning and cook your vegetables for about 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms and onions have just begun to soften. Add a can of diced tomatoes, no salt added of course! Add fresh oregano and basil. Cook for another 5 minutes and then turn the heat all the way down to simmer as you prepare the eggplant.

When eggplant is done cooking let it cool until you can touch it (10ish minutes) and then scoop/cut out the inside, leaving a shell with a little bit of eggplant still on it so it doesn't fall apart. Cut up the part you scooped out and add it to your mixture on the stove.

Turn the oven down to 350 degrees.

Stir the eggplant into the mixture on the stove and cook for another 2 minutes. You do not have to cook this long since the eggplant was in the oven and you are simply trying to combine the flavors! Put the mixture back into the eggplant shells. Mine sagged down and didn't stay in a nice eggplant shape but that was fine - it all tastes the same in the end! I piled it pretty high since I had a lot of mixture. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top (as much or as little as you want.)

Bake for 10 minutes and enjoy!