First of all, thank you so much for all of your sweet comments to my confession. You like me, you really like me!
I’m glad to know that I don’t need to have a format, or a set amount of things I should write about, and that it’s OK to just write whatever floats my boat that day, which I plan to keep doing!
When I was younger I really loved chicken parmesan. We ate it all the time for some reason (the checkout people at the grocery store would frequently ask my Jewish mother if she was Italian b/c she bought so much Italian food!). As I got older, and became pescatarian, and started keeping kosher, chicken parm. wasn’t so much in my life anymore. So I turned to eggplant parmesan for that same craving, sans meat.
A lot of restaurants that served eggplant parm. make it fried, which isn’t exactly my favorite thing in the world. I still get it from time to time, because my mom has always said that you can judge an Italian restaurant by their eggplant parm., and that stuck with me. A few weeks ago, when I was at my parents house, Solomon and my dad wanted chicken parm, so I decided to make my own, healthier eggplant parm from scratch.
I’ve made it twice more since, and had one fail (I forgot the breadcrumbs!), but think this is really a great substitution, and so yummy. I love breaded and fried eggplant, but this is really comparable. It takes a fair amount of time, but is totally worth it.
We knew that we needed a way to make breadcrumbs stick to the eggplant, but didn’t want to do the whole egg/flour/breadcrumb method, even though we knew we weren’t going to fry our eggplant. Instead, we cut 2 eggplants into rounds and spread them out on a baking sheet. Drizzle some olive oil and pepper on top (no salt, it sucks out the moisture!) and put into a 400° oven for 15-20 minutes. Turn the eggplant over and repeat on the other side.
Transfer the eggplant to a casserole dish, and sprinkle breadcrumbs all over the top. Last time I made it, I used homemade breadcrumbs, from my whole wheat egg bread. Since I was using plain breadcrumbs, I also sprinkled a few handfuls of Italian seasoning on top. I could have used a whole bunch of different spices, but this just seemed a whole lot easier!
I didn’t bother to bake this before doing the rest, I didn’t think it really mattered! So I covered my eggplant with a ton of lazy girl’s tomato sauce. Not only does this add a lot of flavor and SPICE to the dish, but it also gives it a lot of texture, which I love!
While the eggplant was cooking away, I cut up a whole block of low moisture, part skim mozzarella. I cut it up into all different rectangles, squares, etc., just to get it cut! I probably could have bought a bag of shredded cheese, but there’s something I really love about a block of mozzarella. All of the cheese went on top of the eggplant, and I pretty much managed to cover every inch!
I covered the whole casserole dish with tin foil, and put it in a 350° oven for 20 minutes. Then I took the aluminum foil off and cooked it another 5. I think next time, I might cook it even longer, since I love really crispy cheese on top! Nothing my crème brûlée torch couldn’t fix though! I totally failed to get a cooked picture of it. Oh well, you all know what eggplant parm looks like! It tasted so good too!
The second time I made this not only did I forget the breadcrumbs, I also didn’t have enough cheese, so I had to use string cheese too! I think the third time around, I got it perfect! Maybe it was the breadcrumbs?
Then, because I didn’t want anything to go to waste this last time, instead of just eating the eggplant parm as leftovers, I made some pizza dough, and put it all on top of a pizza, with some fresh basil and a little leftover chopped tomato.
Holy cow! One of the best pizzas EVER! Solomon and Marlene (my mother in law) kept saying it too. I love eggplant on pizza. It’s incredible!
What’s your staple item when you get Italian food? Or do you always like to try something different?
Tagged: breadcrumbs, eggplant, italian food, mozzarella cheese, pizza, recipe, tomato sauce, whole wheat bread
First of all, thank you so much for all of your sweet comments to my confession. You like me, you really like me!
I’m glad to know that I don’t need to have a format, or a set amount of things I should write about, and that it’s OK to just write whatever floats my boat that day, which I plan to keep doing!
When I was younger I really loved chicken parmesan. We ate it all the time for some reason (the checkout people at the grocery store would frequently ask my Jewish mother if she was Italian b/c she bought so much Italian food!). As I got older, and became pescatarian, and started keeping kosher, chicken parm. wasn’t so much in my life anymore. So I turned to eggplant parmesan for that same craving, sans meat.
A lot of restaurants that served eggplant parm. make it fried, which isn’t exactly my favorite thing in the world. I still get it from time to time, because my mom has always said that you can judge an Italian restaurant by their eggplant parm., and that stuck with me. A few weeks ago, when I was at my parents house, Solomon and my dad wanted chicken parm, so I decided to make my own, healthier eggplant parm from scratch.
I’ve made it twice more since, and had one fail (I forgot the breadcrumbs!), but think this is really a great substitution, and so yummy. I love breaded and fried eggplant, but this is really comparable. It takes a fair amount of time, but is totally worth it.
We knew that we needed a way to make breadcrumbs stick to the eggplant, but didn’t want to do the whole egg/flour/breadcrumb method, even though we knew we weren’t going to fry our eggplant. Instead, we cut 2 eggplants into rounds and spread them out on a baking sheet. Drizzle some olive oil and pepper on top (no salt, it sucks out the moisture!) and put into a 400° oven for 15-20 minutes. Turn the eggplant over and repeat on the other side.
Transfer the eggplant to a casserole dish, and sprinkle breadcrumbs all over the top. Last time I made it, I used homemade breadcrumbs, from my whole wheat egg bread. Since I was using plain breadcrumbs, I also sprinkled a few handfuls of Italian seasoning on top. I could have used a whole bunch of different spices, but this just seemed a whole lot easier!
I didn’t bother to bake this before doing the rest, I didn’t think it really mattered! So I covered my eggplant with a ton of lazy girl’s tomato sauce. Not only does this add a lot of flavor and SPICE to the dish, but it also gives it a lot of texture, which I love!
While the eggplant was cooking away, I cut up a whole block of low moisture, part skim mozzarella. I cut it up into all different rectangles, squares, etc., just to get it cut! I probably could have bought a bag of shredded cheese, but there’s something I really love about a block of mozzarella. All of the cheese went on top of the eggplant, and I pretty much managed to cover every inch!
I covered the whole casserole dish with tin foil, and put it in a 350° oven for 20 minutes. Then I took the aluminum foil off and cooked it another 5. I think next time, I might cook it even longer, since I love really crispy cheese on top! Nothing my crème brûlée torch couldn’t fix though! I totally failed to get a cooked picture of it. Oh well, you all know what eggplant parm looks like! It tasted so good too!
The second time I made this not only did I forget the breadcrumbs, I also didn’t have enough cheese, so I had to use string cheese too! I think the third time around, I got it perfect! Maybe it was the breadcrumbs?
Then, because I didn’t want anything to go to waste this last time, instead of just eating the eggplant parm as leftovers, I made some pizza dough, and put it all on top of a pizza, with some fresh basil and a little leftover chopped tomato.
Holy cow! One of the best pizzas EVER! Solomon and Marlene (my mother in law) kept saying it too. I love eggplant on pizza. It’s incredible!
What’s your staple item when you get Italian food? Or do you always like to try something different?
Tagged: breadcrumbs, eggplant, italian food, mozzarella cheese, pizza, recipe, tomato sauce, whole wheat bread