Beef & Eggplant Stew with Spinach-Feta Couscous & Yogurt Sauce

This was an experiment, but turned out delicious! Wanted to try something different with eggplant and I had some ground beef in the freezer, so I googled "beef eggplant" and kind of improvised this from several recipes I found. Sorta Greek, sorta middle easternish. The eggplant isn't very forthright in this, so if you're not a big eggplant fan, you'll probably like it. Besides 1/2 of a large eggplant, the other CSA veggies were garlic, jalapeno, green pepper, tomatoes and chives. If you'd like the beef mixture to be a little saucier, you could add a can of tomato sauce.

Beef & Eggplant Stew:

- 1 onion, chopped finely

- 1/2 large eggplant (or 1 medium), cut in small cubes

- 1 lb ground beef

- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced (save a little bit for the yogurt sauce)

- 1 jalapeno, minced

- 1 green pepper, chopped

- 2 tsp Penzey's Turkish Blend (or cumin & oregano)

- 1 tsp smoked paprika

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- splash of red wine 

- 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped

In a large skillet, saute onion in olive oil until soft. Add eggplant, season with salt and cook over medium-high heat until eggplant browns & softens. Remove mixture to a plate. Cook ground beef in same pan until no longer pink. If there's a lot of fat, spoon off some of it. Add garlic, jalapeno, green pepper and spices (+salt & pepper), and cook for a couple minutes. Add red wine, tomatoes and the eggplant & onion mixture. Lower heat, cover & cook for about 15 minutes. Add a bit of water if it seems dry. Serve over couscous & top with yogurt sauce. 

Spinach-Feta Couscous:

- Boil 2 cups of water with some salt. Add 1 box instant couscous.

- Throw in a couple big handfuls of baby spinach, cover pot and let sit off heat for a couple minutes.

- Stir & add a couple pats of butter and some crumbled feta. Toss until spinach is wilted & taste for salt.

Yogurt Sauce:

Stir together 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt (2%), some minced garlic, chives, salt and pepper & the juice of 1 lime or lemon. If you have mint or other herbs that would be good, and/or some chopped cucumber.