I am trying to avoid falling back on pasta for non-company dinners, so last night I tried a recipe from Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Cooks Dinner, a chinese-inspired eggplant/shallot/ginger mixture to serve with chicken.

The shallots get browned for a while, then in goes the eggplant until it’s nice and browned and soft. A bunch of minced ginger goes in towards the end, and I served it over rice with grilled chicken.

The eggplant was pleasantly bitter with the sweet shallots, which were really delicious. Another time I might just cook a ton of shallots this way–they were slightly caramelized and a really nice side dish.

We ate out on the porch even though it was a bit chilly. Frogs have woken up in a stream a block or two away, which reminded me of eating on my parents’ deck in Oregon. Spring must really be here!

I tried Bittman’s rice recipe from that book and it didn’t work nearly as well as his method in How to Cook Everything. This way made wet rice, blech.