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Budget cooking: fuck your rules

I apologize for the title. The thing is, I don't know what to call this one, except The Rulebreaker. I was originally thinking about making eggplant parmesan, but I didn't want to take the time on a Thursday night to make marinara, especially since Princess Nadia needed her bath tonight. The idea didn't leave my mind too far, though; I just gave it a pseudo-Asian flair. 
So first off, I cut off a few slices of eggplant, maybe about a half-inch thick. Instead of an eggwash and breadcrumbs, I did my miso/soy binding that I did with the swai and coated the eggplant slices as well as I could with panko crumbs. 
Meanwhile, I started up my rice cooker with some Jasmine rice (still working on the 6lb bag - that shit lasts forever) and a bit of split green peas (still working on the same 1lb bag - that shit lasts forever). I tossed in some salt and black pepper, then added water and got the rice and peas cooking. Nothing too too crazy yet, right?
Wrong. I wanted to make a peanut butter sauce to go with the eggplant because I'm me. Unfortunately, the only "peanut butter" I had was the peanut butter marzipan from my burger fiasco. So, being the fucking psychopath (or, at least, culinary masochist) that I am, I decided that I was honor-bound to make a sauce with this shit. Oh, by the way - it seems like it was vegan, so BOOM, BITCHES!
So I heated up a small pot (kept the heat low) and added a big-ass scoop of the peanut shit. Once it had melted down a little bit, I added the juice from half of a lemon, a little rice vinegar, and a few dashes of soy sauce. After getting it all whisked together, I also dumped in a little bit of lemon zest and maybe 2-3 tablespoons of vegan cream, whisked it some more, then turned the heat all the way down (not off). Sauce accomplished.
While the rice was still cooking and the sauce was staying warm, I added some vegan butter and a dash of sesame oil to my pan and started frying the eggplant. The breading did not stick too well, which was disappointing. I'll figure that out later. Before flipping them, I added in some diced red onion and garlic, along with a little more fake butter.
When the breading on the eggplant was all browned and crispy, I pulled the eggplant out and dumped in some sliced mushrooms with a little more fake butter, and I let that all get crispy together while I finished the rice.
Once the rice cooker was done, I fluffed the rice with a fork (like you're fucking supposed to, but I don't know why), then dumped in a bit of chopped basil and mixed it all in. I put the lid back on to let the basil kind of soak into the rice. I don't know if that's a thing. It made sense in my head at the time. Deal with it.
I kept my plating pretty simple tonight. I scooped the rice into my bowl and patted it into a nice round shape, laid an eggplant slice on top, spooned the crispy garlic/onion/mushroom mix around one side, and ran a spoonful of the peanut sauce up the other. First things first: the sauce looks like vomit, but tastes like heaven. I should probably use a smooth peanut butter for sauces...
Beyond that the basil in the rice was a nice fresh kick under the heavy nut sauce, and, once I just gave up and mixed it all together, all of the flavors played off of each other very well. Tastewise, this is probably in the top 1/3 of dishes I've made, and I will be doing it again. Probably with real peanut butter. Maybe not.
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