Eggplant Parm

My latest creation: Eggplant Parmesean!

I've been eating a lot of eggplant lately - it's exotic, rich flavor really adds a lot to simple dishes. Over the last month or so, my roommate and I have found some recipes like Tomato & Eggplant Caponata (a room temp veggie dish) and an Eggplant Tortellini (which is really cheese tortellini with a tomato & eggplant sauce).

The caponata dish, while delicious, was quite time consuming and I found it's more well received when served warm. The tortellini though, is an amazingly easy dinner to prepare, and it tastes much more complex and fancy than it really is.

Since we had been experimenting with the eggplant, and I found some gorgeous looking ones at the Maple Grove Farmer's Market last week, I decided to give eggplant parmesean a try. I LOVE chicken and veal parmesean. I've maybe had eggplant parm once, at a restaurant. Felt like something worth trying!

Eggplant seems intimidating at first - it looks much heavier than it is, it oxidizes as soon as you cut it (and I mean immediately!). But, I encourage everyone to give it a shot - it's just like cooking zucchini or other veggies - you just have to get to know it and give it a shot. :)

Here's my recipe for eggplant parm (serves 4-5):

1 large eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch slices (long slices)
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans tomato sauce
fresh basil leaves
oregano
rosemary (I didn't have fresh rosemary or oregano, so dried is ok)
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2 T. ground parmesean cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesean cheese
1/2 box mostaciolli noodles


Preheat oven to 350. Mix the breadcrumbs & ground parmesean cheese into a flat bowl. Dip the eggplant slices into the egg so they are coated, then dip into breading mix. Fry in hot pan with olive oil until brown. In a baking dish mix diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and herbs. Spread evenly over bottom of pan. When eggplant is finished frying, place eggplant over tomatoes. Bake for 25 minutes. After 20 minutes, sprinkle shredded parmesean over top, put back in over for remaining 5 minutes. Boil pasta, when cooked, drain & plate with eggplant. Use sauce from bottom of pan for pasta & eggplant. Serve immediately.

Delicious!!

Country Apple Pie

One of my coworkers brought me a bunch of apples from her parents' house the other day, and since I've been craving apple pie (or really any sort of pie) for awhile, I decided to give it a shot.

I've tried making apple pie before, but I've never been able to get the spice/sugar mix right to make the apples all yummy and gooey on the inside. Usually they just end up like sugary apples - more gritty sugar than gooey. But after some google-ing and a little reference cookbook checking, I felt I was ready. And it really did turn out great!

Here's my own recipe (which is a combination of several recipes I found):

1 lb.-ish (enough to fill the pie) tart baking apples, peeled and sliced
1 store-bought pie crust, at room temp
3 c. sugar
2 T. flour
3 T. cinammon (go to town here... use as much as you like!)
1 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. salt
3 T. lemon juice
5 T. butter (in 1 T. pats)

Mix sugar, flour & spices together in small bowl. Place 1st crust in pie pan (preferably glass). Fill with apples, sprinkle with sugar mixture. Drizzle lemon juice evenly over apples. Place butter pats on top of apples, evenly spaced. Cover with 2nd crust (you can be fancy with the top crust or just go with the basic top like me!). Press edge of crusts together with fork, remove excess crust. Cut steam holes to vent. Bake at 375 for 1 hour, or until crust is golden brown.



Maybe on my next attempt I'll try making my own crust! :)