Nourishing an Occupation 4: Eggplant Pasta (with SNOW!)

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It was snowing when I left home to deliver my latest concoction to the hardy souls at Occupy Poughkeepsie. On a very cold night like last night, it's essential to have good, hot food to keep the body warm and fueled.

I was in the park on Wed night for a meeting of Occupy Poughkeepsie Moms and Dads and while I was there, I discovered among the donated food: 6 large eggplants, 3 cans of garbanzo beans, a can of black olives, and many boxes of dried pasta. I can make something with that!

If you've read any of my other blog posts, you won't be surprised to learn that I started cooking by chopping up garlic and onions and sauteing them in oil in the bottom of a soup pot. In this case, I used a whole head of garlic. While that was cooking, I washed and cubed 4 of the eggplants.

I added 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes along with the eggplant, a pound of sliced mushrooms, some water and about 1 cup of tomato juice that I had in the 'fridge. I couldn't actually fit all the eggplant into the pot, so I let it simmer for a while and after it had cooked down a bit I added the rest of it.

I seasoned the sauce with dried Italian herb blend, dried oregano, dried basil, black pepper, soy sauce, a squirt of Sriracha sauce and just a touch of sugar. This simmered for most of the afternoon. At some point, I chopped up 2 sweet red peppers, and the can of olives and added them and 3 drained cans of garbanzo beans to the pot.

I cooked 3 lbs of pasta in boiling water in my largest soup pot. 3 boxes, 3 shapes: rotini, rotelle, & rigatoni. When it was al dente, I drained it and poured it into a large aluminum serving tray. I poured the eggplant sauce over the pasta and mixed it all together. As I was getting ready to load it and 2 cans of sterno into my car, I looked out the window and saw the first snow of the season!

Here's what the camp looked like when I arrived.

By the time I got to Poughkeepsie, it was a wet snow, mixed with rain. Let me tell you, it was cold down there! I was glad I was able to keep the food warm with the sterno because as people arrived they really needed something warm in their bellies.


It's a great feeling to give a hungry, cold person a steaming hot plate of food.

Nourishing an Occupation 2: Sesame Noodles

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)

In this episode of Nourishing an Occupation, I show you how to feed 34 people a delicious, nutritious vegan meal for about $14. The occupiers at Occupy Poughkeepsie, along with visitors and hungry kids from the neighborhood all dug in and enjoyed these Sesame noodles.

With this dish, I started by making a sauce. In a large sauce pan, I heated a bit of oil and added several tablespoons each minced garlic and ginger. After about a minute, I added about 1.5 cup of smooth peanut butter, 1/2 cup of water, 1/3 cups of soy sauce, 1/4 cup vinegar and an extremely generous squirt of Sriracha sauce and sesame oil and stirred it well so it would melt. I tasted this and adjusted the ingredients, adding a bit more of this or that until I had a sauce that was nutty, a bit tart, a bit salty, and with a bite of heat. I let it warm and simmer on the stove.

I filled my largest soup pot 2/3 full with water to boil and cooked 3 lbs of linguini. Cooking that much pasta at once is tricky because if your pot isn't big enough it will stick together. If you don't have a giant pot, cook in 2 or 3 batches. As soon as the pasta was al dente, I drained it and immediately rinsed it well with cold water.

While the sauce was simmering and the pasta cooking, I chopped up a large napa cabbage, 3 sweet red peppers, and a bunch of arugula and put them raw, into a large foil serving dish. I chopped a bunch of green onions and put half of them in with the other veggies. I chopped up a bunch of cilantro and set that aside with the remaining green onions for a topping.

I cut up 2 lbs of firm tofu into small cubes and stirred them into the peanut sauce, then let the sauce cool a bit.

I put the pasta into the big foil dish with the vegetables, and using my clean hands, mixed everything together. Then I poured the cooled sauce over everything and mixed it through thoroughly. I topped the dish with chopped green onions, cilantro and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.

This was a big hit with the occupiers and the neighborhood kids who stopped by the park couldn't get enough.