Aubergine and Pine Nut Pasta

This is an extremely tasty pasta, which also happens to be quite nutritious. I came up with this pretty much by just picking random ingredients that I felt like eating and combining it all into one pasta – and the result was great. I would definitely recommend making this great rustic pasta in almost any situation. 

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 400g pasta
• 1 aubergine, sliced into strips
• 40g pine nuts
• 30g basil
• 200g cherry tomatoes, chopped into eighths
• 500g cherry tomatoes in tomato juice
• 250g passata
• ½ large red onion, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped in halves
• glass of white wine
• 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil

Preparation (40 minutes)

Drizzle some olive oil on a large pan and turn it on medium heat. Add the onions and leave for about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, leave for 2 minutes, and add the pine nuts. Mix around for about 5 minutes, then add the white wine and turn on maximum heat. Stir constantly until all of the wine has evaporated, then add the tomatoes. Turn the heat back down to medium and leave to cook for 4 minutes, then add the aubergine. Add some salt and pepper, then mix around for about 10 minutes, then add the cherry tomatoes in tomato juice and the passata, and turn the heat to maximum for 5 minutes, then turn it down to minimum for 15 minutes. Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add some salt, then add the pasta and stir around every 2 minutes or so. 1 minute before the amount of time the pack of pasta says it takes to cook, taste it – it’s usually ready. Once it is ready, drain it, toss it back in the pot, and add the sauce. Add the nutritional yeast and basil, mix everything together, and serve!