Eggplant

With few vegetarian take out options and a tight budget, Mike and I try to cook at least five to six meals a week.  Ughh but cooking dinner is one of the last things I (or anyone else I would assume) want to do after a longgg day at work.  That's why we try to prepare at least one meal on Sunday that can be quickly heated up for dinner on our most tired of days.

Today we began preparations for eggplant parmesan.  Yum yum.  After peeling a ginormous eggplant from our farmer's market, I thinly sliced the eggplant, coated it in flour, eggs/milk, and italian seasoning, then threw it on a greased up pan and doused a little more oil on the top and tossed it in the oven at 450*.  I prefer baking the eggplant over frying because of the flavor.  When the eggplant is saturated in grease I can barely taste the eggplant.  Who needs all that oil anyway?  Oh, and, it takes less time to cook and is less of a mess to clean up!

Grandma would be very proud of how thin I got them this time.  She would not be proud, however, of how I finish off my eggplant parmesan...

After I devoured a few small slices (a chef's gotta test out her food before serving), I put the eggplant in a ziploc bag and placed it in the freezer.  Remember, I'm doing the labor today and putting it together for dinner one day this week.

On the night I plan on eating this, which might be sooner than later, the first step would be to defrost the eggplant.  Then, slather the bottom of a baking dish with Trader Joe's Three Cheese Tomato Sauce (forgive me, grandma!) and layer on the eggplant and some mozzarella cheese.  Continue to alternate eggplant, sauce, and  cheese until you run out of eggplant.   Top it off with your remaining mozzarella  and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.  Cheese Cheese Cheese.   I don't remember what temperature to turn the oven on to.  I usually call my mom and ask.  But my gut tells me it's around 350* or 375* and cook until the cheese starts to bubble.  A piece of garlic bread would be an excellent side dish.  This part of the process should take no more than 10 minutes to assemble...maybe 20 minutes if I'm drinking a glass of wine.  The perfect amount of time I want to spend in the kitchen after a hard day's work :)