Good things come in small packages

Pasta alla norma

Today I think I made the last harvest of tomatoes for this season. I’m speaking of tomatoes good for making sauce. For the rest , in the vegetable garden I still have : cherry tomatoes,  tomatoes  good for salad, aubergines and  peppers. Some courgette flowers have appeared , but whether they will find the strength to reach maturity, I don’t know. All the onions  have been harvested and stored already.  With this latest collection of tomatoes , I made another 10 jars of  passata sauce…. but at the end of the procedure… this time, something went wrong . I found myself with a ladle of passata sauce extra! Pour this into a super mini jar seemed absurd, and throw it … no way. So with a knife in my hand I went into the vegetable garden and I cut a very small white aubergine. Back in the kitchen, I took a mini frying pan and with a little drop of  e.v.o. oil  I fried the mini aubergine . So, what came out is a 4 finger food portioned Pasta called “alla Norma”! The final touch was to sprinkle salty ricotta cheese on top,  so in this way my mini pasta dish, very popular in Sicily, would have been perfect. Unfortunately ,I didn’t have any ricotta, so I used pecorino cheese instead. The conclusion is: 1 ladle of tomato passata sauce= 4 finger food portions of Pasta alla Norma. And another day goes by.

Serves: 4 normal portions
400 grams of Rigatoni pasta
250 grams of tomato passata
3 basil leaves
1 aubergine
E.v.o. oil
Salt and pepper
A handful of salted ricotta cheese grated (or pecorino cheese)
How it works:
Cook the tomato passata with a drizzle of evo oil, a pinch of salt and three basil leaves. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes . Cut the aubergine into thin slices. Fry the aubergine slices in e.v.o. oil until they are golden and soft.  Once cooked  remove  the excess oil from the aubergine slices with kitchen paper . Cook pasta and drain. Combine pasta and tomatoes sauce , mix. On each plate place one or two slices of eggplant, add the pasta and put on top another slice of eggplant. Sprinkle over the grated cheese. Repeat for each plate.