Eggplant Cutlets with Peruvian Giant Lima Beans in a Marinara Sauce (Almost No Added Fat)

I invited some friends over for dinner tonight and decided to make a layered main course of breaded eggplant (that I had frozen and prepared) with beans and marinara sauce. The cutlets only had 2g of fat per serving of the cutlets, with 5 servings in the packet, so I'll label this dish as almost no added fat (the nutrition label linked here seems to be for another product, as mine is clearly labeled vegan with 10g of fat for eating all of the cutlets). Here is what I did.


Ingredients

• 2 cups Peruvian Giant Lima beans, rinsed, soaked overnight, and rinsed again
• Just enough water to cover the lima beans
• Vegan bouillon cube
• 8 ounces frozen chopped spinach
• 16 ounce packet of frozen eggplant cutlets 
• 
  
• 2 cups onion cut into half moon slices approx. 1/4" x 1 1/4" ( maybe 2/3 of a medium onion)
• 1 1/4 cups carrot cut into 3/8" slices (3 small-medium carrots)

Process

1. I put the beans, water, bouillon cube, and spinach into my Instant Pot pressure cooker and cooked for 28m.
2. While the beans were cooking, I sauteed a small onion cut into about 1" x 1/2" slices on a cast iron pan with no oil and simmered a nice marinara sauce with a store-bought sauce as the base and garlic, bell pepper, some of the cooked onion, nutritional yeast, salt, and oregano mixed in.
3. I also heated the eggplant slices in a 375°F oven for about 15 minutes.
4. After the beans were done, I waited a few minutes and gently released pressure, then served the beans atop the eggplant, with marinara on top of it all.

Results

Dinner came out well! I forgot to add the carmelized onion (the onion came out great even without oil) and also a garnish of fennel frond when I took the picture. I think that our guests enjoyed the meal; we certainly did.

Ideas for the future

Some capers with the marinara could have been nice. I wish that there were more eggplant. I should use this good breaded eggplant product more often!