Buon Apetito- Parmigiana di Melanzane

Last night I got suckered into cooking a completely vegetarian meal for a date night with my friend Anneka, and I have to admit, I was weary that I might be lost without a nice piece of steak or chicken breast to jazz up my meal, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised by how a vegetarian meal, if done with lots of cheese and sauce, can really be satisfying.

Seeing as we pretty much eat tacos or spaghetti every time we cook together, Anneka and I decided to venture out of our comfort zone and let the produce section at SAFEWAY do the menu planning for us. What we created was delicious and mentally appeasing, as we were really proud of ourselves for being so much healthier than our days of living together when all we ate was frozen chicken wings and rice-a-roni (which I still love!).

I hope that you enjoy this creation as much as we did, it’s a mild twist on one of my favorite Eggplant Parmesan dishes, we added tons of veggies and really had a great time chopping, chatting and of course finishing our bottle of pinot grigio.

Parmigiana di Melanzane Primavera

Time- 40 minutes

Serving- 4-5 people

Ingredients

One large eggplant

3 eggs

Italian breadcrumbs

4 cloves of garlic

1 can whole tomatoes

¼ large white onion

1 package baby portabello mushrooms

1 large red bell pepper

4 tbs extra virgin olive oil

5 leaves of fresh basil

1 bag of shredded mozzarella or provolone cheese

Fresh grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice eggplant into quarter inch slices, you should get about 15-20 slices from one large eggplant. Whisk together eggs, in separate bowl pour in breadcrumbs and prepare non-stick baking sheet. Bake eggplant for 20 minutes or until soft, if you want them more crispy, you can then broil for 5 minutes or until breadcrumbs are browned.

Chop garlic, onion, mushrooms and red bell pepper into like size pieces.  In a blender, puree tomatoes until sauce like. In large skillet heat oil over medium high and brown garlic and onion. Add mushrooms and bell peppers and cook until soft. Add tomato sauce, fresh basil, salt and pepper to taste (at this point  I also add some crushed red pepper flakes for spice), simmer sauce for 10 minutes.

In a non-stick or prepared pyrex dish, begin layering ingredients. One layer of eggplant slices, cover with sauce and smother with mozzarella/provolone and grated parmesan. Repeat steps until you run out of eggplant. Top off with additional cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is brown and bubbling.

I would serve this with a fresh mixed green salad with a balsamic vinegarette to cut through the heaviness of the sauce and cheese.

Buon Apetito!

**This post is in no way meant to convince anyone that I will be adopting the vegetarian lifestyle, I am a cheeseburger, chicken fried steak, carne asada burrito kind of girl and don’t intend on changing my lifestyle anytime soon. I’m just saying, I am starting to see that vegetarians aren’t necessarily nuts-o, they actually have some pretty cool and delicious options out there that I am now more willing to experiment with….just don’t bring me any tofu (yuck!)

Ciao