This year I grew my own eggplant for the first time. I had an abundance of it so I needed to come up with creative ways to cook it. I decided to cube and sauté the eggplant and add it to a creamy tomato sauce with 3 cheeses, heavy cream, sausage, baby spinach, garlic, basil, and cherry tomatoes.

I started by cooking the sausage and cutting it into bite-size pieces. I cubed the eggplant and sautéed it in olive oil. I removed the eggplant from the pan and drained some of the oil from it. In a separate sauce pan, I added pasta sauce, heavy cream, garlic, basil, feta cheese, parmesan cheese, tomatoes and a little sugar to cut some of the bitterness of the sauce. At the same time I boiled the cellentani al dente. When everything was done, I added the cellentani to the pan. I poured the sauce over the pasta and mixed in the sausage and eggplant and let it simmer. At the very end I grated mozzarella cheese to add on top to make a lovely presentation.

This was the first time I ever cooked with feta cheese. I was hesitant to use it because I did not like the taste of it cold. However, when I added a pinch to the sauce and let it melt, the taste mellowed out to become smooth and creamy. I enjoyed the flavor so much I ended up adding quite a bit to the sauce. It enhanced the cheesiness and flavor I was looking for. It was a nice compliment to the parmesan cheese. The 3 cheeses together with the heavy cream made this dish incredible. I can never go wrong adding sausage and baby spinach to my pasta dishes so this was an awesome combination of all my favorites.

I am definitely going to keep this recipe in my catalog. The next time I cook this, I may try a few variations like adding sun dried tomatoes and/or some thinly sliced black olives.

Enjoy~Allison

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