I found a recipe for rigatoni with eggplant and garlic sauce, but I guess I don't like eggplant enough to eat it regularly. But the garlic sauce was fantastic, and actually relatively healthy, as far as creamy sauces go, so I thought I'd share. And on a more personal note, I would encourage you not to eat this before swim practice, I had awful stomach aches due to all the dairy.
- 1/2 head of garlic
- 2 cups milk
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 3 branches thyme or 2 pinches of dried
- 2 Tablespoons chopped basil or 1 teaspoons dried
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1 1/3 Tablespoons flour (ie. 1 Tbsp+1 tsp)
- Grated parmesan/romano cheese to taste
Peel and press the garlic and cook in the milk, with the nutmeg, thyme, basil, and bay leaf over low heat. Make a roux (new cooking term, yay, which essentially means a thick sauce made from a mixture of fat and flour) by adding the flour to the butter and cooking for a few minutes. Then add the milk mixture and whisk. Cook over the lowest heat for half an hour, stirring frequently. When done cooking, add cheese and use as you like.
My recipe involved browning eggplant and making rigatoni, then baking it all together. This was okay, but like I said, I'm not a huge fan of eggplant, but I wanted to try it according to the recipe before making recommendations. I think this would definitely be a great sauce with some sauteed red pepper and maybe some spinach.
