Eggplant Curry with Rice

When I started my vegetarian diet I barely knew how to prepare vegetables, because I used to eat chicken everyday and eggplant was a truly mystery for me, yet today it's one of the most favorite meal in our family. There are various of recipes with eggplant, but this is very delicious and easy to make. 

Ingredients:
some spices :  
• 1 tsp curry
• ½ tsp red pepper powder
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground pepper
• ½  tsp Italian herbs
• 1 tsp mustard seeds (optional) 
you can also add some other spices of a choice

• 1 medium eggplant, about 1 tbsp of salt for marinate
• 1 cup of rice + 2 cups of water
• 3-4 spoons of natural tomato sauce
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3-4 spoons of vegetable oil (olive or sunflower), add more if needed
• 2-3 spoons water
• fresh salad

Method

1. Cut the eggplant 1x2cm pecies (0,4x0,8in), sprinkle with salt and leave for 30 minutes, after that wash eggplant pieces with water.
2. Prepare rice: boil the water, add some turmeric, salt and a little bit of vegetable oil (optional) and cook rice for 15-20min
3. Heat the pan on medium heat, add vegetable oil and eggplant cubes to the pan, after 10 minutes add tofu cubes, cook until eggplant is tender (about 10-20 minutes). If you cover your pan with a lid, eggplant will cook in 10minutes.*
4. Remove eggplant and drain fat with a paper towel.
5. Now there is two options. If you want to make natural tomato sauce use 3-4 fresh tomatoes or you can use simple natural tomato sauce.
6. If you will use fresh tomatoes, you can remove it's skin or use tomatoes with it,, Chop it to small pieces. I am usually too lazy to make my own tomato sauce, so I just use natural tomato sauce from store.:)
7. Add 1 spoon of vegetable oil to the same pan, where eggplant was cooked. Add 2 smashed garlic cloves and curry, red pepper powder, cinnamon spices, stir. Add tomatoes or tomato sauce, pour 2-3 spoons of water and cook for couple of minutes (fresh tomatoes will need 5-6 minutes). Add salt, black pepper, Italian herbs, stir and finally add eggplants with tofu cubes, cook for one more minute.
8. Enjoy with fresh salad! :)

*if you don't want very oily eggplants, you can cook them in water for 5 minutes, and after that cook on some vegetable oil for 5-10 minutes. (eggplants tend to absorb oil fast, so if you don't want to put more of it, just pour some water in the pan and cook on water).