Brown Rice Noodles with Spicy Grafitti Eggplant-Tomato Sauce and Lemon-Pepper Tempeh Strips

I was excited a few days ago when I was shopping to find brown rice noodles. I do buy Tinkyada rice pasta, but in this case I found traditional Thai rice noodles. My wife picked up some lovely grafitti eggplants a few days ago. I almost always buy Lightlife brand tempeh, but recently picked up lemon-pepper marinated tempeh strips from Turtle Island Foods.

So, for dinner, I sliced a grafitti eggplant into thirds to get 3 long "boats". I put a little olive oil on both sides of the central cut and the "flesh" side of the end cuts. I tossed on a few thin slices of onion and roughly sliced garlic clove, sprinkling a little olive oil on these, as well, then roasted in my toaster oven (approximately 400°F for about 20 minutes).

I started simmering a nice marinara sauce with some dried herbs, bit of crushed red pepper, and a pinch or two of salt. When the eggplant was lightly browned, I added the onion and garlic to the sauce and easily teased out the eggplant flesh from its skin. The eggplant was soft; I used a knife to roughly cut it apart a bit. I added the eggplant and squeezed it into the sauce.

The rice noodles took about 3 minutes to be cooked in boiling water. I served the sauce atop the noodles, along with sauteed strips of the tempeh and an avocado half.