Eating veggies out of our garden is our favorite thing in the world! Our eggplants didn’t stand a chance; we ate 3 in about a week. Now we’re waiting for our plants to slllooowwwlly fruit more. It’s painful…it really is!

Before you saute anything to make the sauce, you need to get to choppin your veggies. I cut up one Japanese eggplant into thin discs, 1 jalapeno pepper into small pieces, quartered a handful of baby portabella mushrooms (washed) and then sliced two thick rings off a yellow onion and chopped them into medium size pieces.

In a medium sized skillet, saute the eggplant, jalapeno and onions on medium low heat in some extra virgin olive oil. I seasoned these veggies with some sea salt, fresh ground pepper and oregano. Once they cooked for about 4-5 minutes, I added the mushrooms, MorningstarFarms ground “beef” crumbles and a can of organic diced tomatoes. I turned the heat up slightly to medium, added some Italian seasoning and some red pepper flakes.  Watch this sauce, stirring occasionally so nothing burns at the bottom.  Once its cooked for about 5 minutes, turn the heat back down to medium low and cover.  You can let this cook like this until your noodles are done.

Once plated I topped with some fresh basil leaves from the garden as well as some broccoli that I ran through the food processor and some vegan parmesan cheese.