Eggplant Curry with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Tofu

I am positively drowning in un-posted posts right now! Ack! Here's my effort at chipping away at the backlog...

As I recently emailed a friend, my brain does this funny thing annually where it totally hits delete on the misery that is late fall / all of winter as soon as warm weather rolls around.

Consequently, here we are at late fall, and suddenly, cruelly suddenly, I am caught off guard by how very dreary it all is. It truly must be some sort of evolutionary amnesia that I'm programmed with that serves to prevent me from cliff-jumping around late October.

The whole getting dark at 2:15 in the afternoon thing feels like being ripped out of bed on a freezing cold morning and then being told that someone just ate the last pancake. Every day.

Oh, I am a dramatic one, aren't I?

Here's some curry to pour into the wound.

Ingredients:

1 TB vegetable oil
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp coriander seed
1 white onion, chopped
1 TB fresh ginger, chopped finely
1/2 TB turmeric
1/2 TB garam masala
1/2 TB curry powder (your blend of choice)
1/2 c vegetable stock
2-3 eggplants, cut into roughly 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 red pepper, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
2 roasted sweet potatoes, cut into roughly 1 inch chunks
1 block extra firm tofu, pressed, thoroughly drained, and prepared as described here


Preparation:

Heat oil in large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add mustard and coriander seeds, and stir to coat in oil. Put lid on dutch oven and cook seeds until they begin to pop, about two minutes.

Remove lid, and add onion, ginger, turmeric, garam masala and curry powder to pot. Cook over medium heat until onions soften, about five minutes. Add vegetable stock, and stir to loosen any browned bits from bottom of pan.

Turn heat to medium-low and add eggplant and pepper. Stir to combine all ingredients. Cook with lid on for about thirty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove lid and cook until sauce has reduced to desired degree, about ten minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, put approximately 1/2 c sweet potato and 1/2 c tofu in each bowl. Top with curry mixture. Serves 4-6.