This was not a vegan meal, but it is vegetarian, so at least there's that. I started off by slicing my garlic as thin as I could, dicing up some red and yellow onion and some bell pepper, slicing up some mushrooms, chopping up a green onion, and mincing some basil leaves.
I made the mistake of peeling my tomatoes raw. They're much easier to peel if you cook them first, but I was drinking wine and didn't feel like blanching tomatoes, so I butchered them instead.
I still had about half an eggplant, and it was starting to oxidize, so I figured I'd go ahead and get that all cooked up. I cut it into "fries," then dredged those in flour, gave them an egg wash, and coated them with bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper.
I gave the fries a quick fry in butter and olive oil, and they were absolutely delightful. I ended up eating about half of them before I finished cooking the rest of everything else. If you try nothing else from this post, make some fucking eggplant fries.
Once the fries were out of the pan, I dumped in my yellow and red onion. The water cooking out of the onions deglazed the pan for me, so I didn't have to add any other liquid yet. I just let the onions cook for a little bit and get good and sweated before I continued. This was a very onion-y sauce, and I have no regrets.
When they onions were a little softened, I dropped in my tomatoes. It was at this point that I realized I'd fucked up: I should have cut the tomatoes up first. At the end of the day, though, it was fine; once the tomatoes had cooked a bit, I was able to break them up with my wooden spatula without much issue.
Once the tomatoes were a little browned and I was able to break them up for the most part, I went ahead and dumped in my garlic, then added a few pinches of salt. The overarching trick with this sauce is to take your time. Let things go. Don't turn the heat up too high, and you can let it sit for a while without ruining anything.
Once the garlic had broken down a little bit, I added in the mushroom and bell pepper, then got everything good and mixed up. Most of the liquid was absorbed by the mushrooms at this point, so I added in some red wine (Josh Cellars pinot noir today). I got everything mixed up again, then let it sit for a few more minutes.
Once the wine was simmering, it was time to add some black olives and my green onion. At this point, I moved the sauce to a back burner on low heat and started cooking my pasta. I went with fettucine because it's the long pasta I have on hand.
When the pasta was about finished, I spooned a ladleful of pasta water into the sauce pan, drained the noodles, and dumped them into the sauce. I turned the heat up a little bit, got the noodles mixed in pretty well, then dumped my basil on top. Another few tosses, and everything was ready to eat.
I just used my tongs to put a clump of fettucine into the center of my plate, then spooned a little bit of the sauce over the noodles. I finished it off by grating some Romano cheese on top.
After that, it was just a matter of laying some of the very few remaining eggplant fries against the pasta, and it was lunchtime. Bone apple tea!
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