Eggplant Stuffed With Rice and Tomatoes

This recipe for Eggplant Stuffed With Rice and Tomatoes appeared in the NY Times Recipes for Health with a collection of stuffed vegetable recipes for late summer vegetables - zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and bell peppers.  It's been on my radar for a few weeks, and I decided to give it a try.  As I often mention, I cook for two, not twenty as I sometimes would like to believe, so when I started to take out the ingredients for this recipe, I opted to make roughly half of it.  Even so, not all of it was eaten :( but what was eaten was very good.  I tried the dish both cold (as suggested) and hot and it worked both ways.  The thick, vibrant sauce, made from grated tomatoes and interesting spices, made it even better.  I ended up cooking the dish for far longer than intended - I opted for brown basmati rice, so it needed a bit more time to cook.  (My mom tried the related recipe for stuffed tomatoes, and the rice didn't cook at all.  So I was cautious when starting, but this recipe called specifically for uncooked rice.)  I omitted the mint because I didn't have any, and the cilantro was really enough herb for me, especially with the strong flavor of the sauce.  This was a tasty "farewell to summer" recipe, which I ate with a friend at a picnic table in a sunny park on my lunch break.  I'll be keeping this in mind as an eggplant recipe for next summer.