Thursday 16 July 2009

What I had for dinner

I took Blest's old recipe and spruced it up a bit, and boy was is yummy! I gave it a boring name for now, but maybe later I'll come up with something better. Or does someone out there have any suggestions?

The ingredient measurements are not exact (I just eyeball most of the time) so you may need to adjust where appropriate.

EGGPLANT BAKE

1 large eggplant
1 cup sliced mushrooms
½ cup chopped onions
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
1-2 cups spaghetti or pizza sauce
1 ½ cups grated mozzarella
½-1 cup grated Parmesan
Italian herbs (I used marjoram, thyme, basil & oregano and crushed red pepper for a kick)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Thinly coat bottom of 9x13 inch baking pan with olive oil. Slice eggplant into ½ inch rounds. Lay eggplant rounds in baking pan, season with salt, pepper & herbs and drizzle or brush with olive oil and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese (Optional: I rubbed the rounds on both sides with garlic before laying them in the pan, then minced the garlic and mixed it with olive oil before brushing it onto the eggplant.) Bake eggplant for 15 minutes.

After eggplant is finished baking, remove from oven and top with about ½ cup of spaghetti sauce (enough to spread so it barely covers the eggplant but not necessarily pooling onto the bottom of the pan). Sprinkle with about ½ cup mozzarella. Add mushrooms, onions and bell pepper then top with rest of the spaghetti sauce (in total, I used half a can of sauce, but didn’t measure so not sure exactly how much I put). Top with remainder of mozzarella & Parmesan. Bake 20 minutes or until cheese is melted, slightly starting to brown, and the sauce is bubbling along the edges.

Served with salad, this can easily feed 4 very hungry people! It’s so yummy that my meat and potatoes dad loved it and actually had two servings!

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