using up: aubergines, a sweet potato

I bought some aubergines from the farm shop last weekend – they were a bit tired, but when I looked at them on Tuesday they really did need cooking. So I bunged in some chickpeas to soak, boiled them yesterday morning, and off we went.

First off, I cubed the sweet potato and boiled it for five minutes to get it started.

Then chopped two red onions, three aubergines, a shallot.

Pete made a paste with six cloves of garlic, and coriander, cumin, dry ginger, allspice, cinnamon, pomegranate seeds and black pepper, and a bit of water.

Fried the onion in some groundnut oil, then added the spice mix and fried for a couple of minutes. Put in the aubergines, courgette and sweet potato and stirred it all around til the veg were coated in oil. Added a tin of tomatoes, and about half a can of water (rinsing the tin round with the water to extract the last tomatoey goodness). Sprinkled with a little salt, added the chickpeas and the juice of half a lemon.

Put it on a low heat with a lid on for about 35 minutes, while we prepped and cooked some rice. I put three tubfuls into the freezer this morning – it were really very nice.