Monday, September 21, 2009

What We Makin': Eggplant Parmesan

I absolutely love making warm hearty meals when the weather gets cooler, and this eggplant parmesan is perfect for cooler days.



First, slice your eggplant into 1/2 inch slices.  Sprinkle lightly with salt and let sit for 15 minutes or so.  While that is working, you can get to work making a sauce.  Canned pasta sauce is great for when you're in a rush.  This time, I opened a jar of pasta sauce and added some onions, garlic, grated zucchini and red peppers.




For the "parmesan," I made up a simple substitute that I really like.  I added 1 cup of sesame seeds, 1/2 a cup of almonds, 1/2 a cup of nutritional yeast and 1 tsp of sea salt into a food processor and blended until it became a fine crumb mixture.

After the eggplant is ready, rinse it off in a colander and pat dry.  Next up, you'll need to bread and fry the eggplant.  I mixed egg replacer with hemp milk and some water together and put it into a wide bowl.  For the breading, I mixed spelt flour with some corn meal and some Italian seasonings.  First dip the eggplant into the milk mixture, then the breading.  Shake off any excess breading and drop into a frying pan heated with a layer of oil.  After the slices brown, transfer them to a paper towel to blot excess oil.




Once all of the slices have been fried, you can move onto layering the eggplant with cheese and sauce.  I also used some grated soy mozzarella along with my parmesan mixture.




Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven covered with foil for maybe half an hour or so.  Then take the foil off and broil it until it starts to brown.

--Jen

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