Monday, August 9, 2010

Eggplant Parmesan

Ok here we go! On the left is a store eggplant, on the right is Bunny Lounge Homegrown Eggplant! We harvested our eggplant about a week ago and it was still perfect and whiteish green inside. I bought and used the store eggplant sunday and it had a brown spot inside, bleck!
Yes, of course I salted my eggplant! It is step 1 in America's Test Kitchen. Also if you look back to summer vegetable gratin, I salted the zucchini and squash, I know to salt! Someone mentioned the paper towels as well. ATK recommends taking three towel thick paper towels and pressing water out. Then it was flour, egg, bread crumbs and parm cheese, and bake eggplant at 425 for 1/2 hour, well thats what it said. I baked at 425 and when I rotated trays in the oven ten minutes in it looked good, at 20 minutes when I was supposed to flip them over, they looked done, crispy and brown, one tiny piece was burnt to a crisp so I pulled them out. A simple sauce was made, garlic and red pepper sauteed in oil in the sauce pan, then an addition of crushed and stewed tomatoes (recipe called for diced that would then be food processed, no diced tomatoes no food processer so I used crushed and stewed, I liked it with a bit of tomato chunk) and then I was supposed to add the basil (homegrown again!) to the sauce and I forgot so thats why my basil is right there on the cheese. This is the first layer, sauce on the bottom. eggplants, mozzarella and parm cheese and in my case basil.
Here's what the eggplant looks like!
Now we are ready for the oven! Back into the 425 degree oven we left on from baking eggplant for 12-15 minutes to make bubbly! I love bubbly cheese!
Brown and Bubbly! Hef's dad liked it, but thought it should have spaghetti with it. Which is not traditional but I can understand him wanting a bulkier meal. Hef's grandma (Hef's dad's mom) ate it, she is not italian, she is irish, but she liked it a lot. Hef's grandpa and Hef's great grandma (the italians!) didn't eat it. They didn't refure or anything, they were just coming to visit not to eat dinner. They just always come over around our dinner time, they eat earlier. And what did I think of it? I thought it was yummy! I like that the eggplant was baked and not fried, I don't like fried! And I love melty cheese. I am glad we bought a store eggplant too because then I used the big casserole pan instead of the little one, lots of leftovers. However it is time consuming to bread all those eggplant slices! If we get another eggplant in the garden I"m going to make the small casserole. If you want the full recipe email me, I'm not going to post it and get sued by ATK.

7 comments:

The Fab Furs said...

Between your description and the pictures can almost taste it! Yummy!

I hadn't realized that there was a breading/baking step and then a cheese addition step--I would have done the breading, added sauce and cheese and tossed it in the oven to fend for itself. I guess I will have to break down and buy the cookbook rather than guessing at recipes. Do you have the hardcover or the spiral?

bunnits said...

Oh, Yum! Those photos and your description are making me hungry--and I haven't had breakfast yet!

LOS said...

Bella, bella!

Too bad the grandparents didn't just taste it to get their opinion. Sounded labor intensive, but turned out beautifully. I'm telling Mr. F ... a new chef is born.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Looks great! Were you able to notice any taste difference between the home-grown eggplant and the store-bought one?

Lisa said...

That looks incredible.

RG said...

Yes it looks great - but - should BL happen to ask, could you just say you haven't gottne the recipe written down yet or something?

To me, egg plant anything is as bad as spaghetti squash!

Michelle May-The Raspberry Rabbits said...

Did you save me some?????
Ok.. so why would people come over around dinner time and not eat with you but eat before hand? Weird...are they afraid or something? If you're not going to eat, then don't come around dinner time and stare at the people eating. That would freak me out. But then again...I'm weird. hee,hee,hee.