Edamame and Eggplant with Whole Wheat Orzo

I have a little Miyoko's Kitchen vegan mozzarella left and thought I'd make an eggplant dish with some cheese. Eggplant cooks nicely (in just 3 minutes!) in the pressure cooker, so I started that going. By the time the eggplant was done, it tasted great with no cheese, so I skipped the cheese. Here is what I did.


Ingredients

• 5 cups eggplant (skin intact) cut into 1/2" cubes (maybe 4/5 of a medium eggplant)
• 2 cups shelled edamame
• 2 packed cups kale, hand-ripped into roughly 1" squares
• 2 cloves garlic, finely (< 1/8") minced
• Vegan bouillon cube
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup onion cut into 1/4" cubes
• 1/2 t tarragon (I couldn't find my tarragon so used oregano instead)
• 1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 t salt

Process

1. I put the eggplant, edamame (I used frozen; if fresh, I'd just mix in at the end), kale, garlic, bouillon cube, and water into my Instant Pot pressure cooker and cooked for just three minutes.
2. After the cooking was done, I waited a few minutes and gently released pressure, then added the onion, oregano, pepper, and salt.

I served with whole wheat orzo and a salad.

Results

Dinner was quite good! I really liked the eggplant dish; though I like the taste of eggplant, it changes to be more a background matrix when pressure cooked. It served the firm bite of the edamame well.

Ideas for the future

My original idea would have worked if I had integrated tomato into the cooking, maybe making some sort of ratatouille or caponata. I should try a Turkish Imam Bayildi dish sometime!