Steamed eggplant pasta salad

At last!! A new recipe!! My apologies to all of you for being such a slacker on the blog for the past month. September has been crazy busy. I've had visitors at home for weeks at a time, and had absolutely zero time to edit any posts.

But this is over now, and I have TONS of recipes in my head for you!

Here is the first recipe of the fall: my steamed eggplant and pasta salad.


INGREDIENTS (4 people):
- 2 cups of dry short pasta (I used orecchiette)
- 2 medium eggplants
- a large handful of cherry tomatoes
- 1/4 cup black olives, pitted
- basil leaves, to taste
- juice of 1 lemon
- 10-15 baby mozzarella balls, in oil
- a pinch of salt


RECIPE:
- rinse and dice the eggplants in bite-sized pieces and salt them lightly while you wait for a huge pot of water to boil
- when the water boils hard, start steaming the eggplants for 10-15 minutes, then pour the pasta in the boiling water underneath the basket and cook until the pasta is al dente and the eggplant is tender

Note: I used my new pasta cooker-steamer combo, but you can absolutely do this in different pots!
- when the pasta is al dente, strain and rinse quickly with cold water, sprinkle a little olive oil and toss around so the pasta does not stick together

- reserve the cooked eggplant on the side until just warm, then add to the cold pasta and toss all the remaining ingredients together, sprinkle with a little lemon juice and shredded basil leaves

- enjoy your super healthy eggplant-pasta salad!