Punjabi Eggplant over Organic Brown Rice Penne, Koshimbir (Marathi Salad), Avocado

My daughter almost never gets sick, but today she had a sudden bout of something - which already seems like it has passed quickly. By the time we were done attending to her, it was well past 9p, so I wanted to get dinner on the table quickly. My wife helped by making a Marathi salad with shredded cabbage, various spices, peanuts, and lemon juice called koshimbir.

Like I did last May, I easily prepared a Punjab eggplant dish. As I wrote then, "there is a line of convenient Indian (and Thai, I believe) foods by a company called Tasty Byte; the ingredients are good and don't include all sorts of strange sounding chemicals, and they just require boiling for a few minutes within the foil bag the food comes in. I bought their Punjab Eggplant - it turned out to be very tasty (and a bit spicy hot) -- I really liked it!"

I wanted to serve the eggplant over rice, but in the interests of time, as it was getting late, I went with organic brown rice penne pasta. I put the rice in boiling water, cooked, stirring, for a minute or two, then turned the heat off and let it cook, covered, for about 20 minutes. An unusually large avocado, halved, rounded out this easy dinner. That eggplant is really good. We both loved it - and it went well with the noodles!