Tonight's Dinner

Here's what we served for dinner in the kitchen tonight. Boy...was it scrumpdillyicious!!

Eggplant Parmesan, lasagna style w/Baby Spring Greens & Peppers Salad

Ok....the main dish is the Eggplant Parmesan, Lasagna Style, and the recipe for that comes from "J & J Dish It Out" blog, so all credit goes there to Jenifer! Thank you! Thank you!

Jenifer explains that she usually makes two at a time, so she can have an extra one to freeze.

This is a GREAT idea! Today, though, we only made the one.

And allow us tell you......because of how delicious this meal is, we have found another great way to get the kids to eat a new veggie....eggplant!!! So yummy!!!

Start with these ingredients

2 eggplants

bread crumbs

eggs

vegetable oil

mozzarella cheese

Italian blend cheese*

ricotta cheese*

pasta sauce

dried oregano

dried parsley

chopped garlic*

salt & pepper to taste

*Even with all the fore-planning, we goofed on some of the ingredients here!!!

For the Italian blend cheese, we forgot to purchase any, so we mixed in just regular *grated parmesan cheese*.

For the ricotta cheese - Jenifer didn't have the amount listed, and we neglected to look closely at her very clear photo, so we bought the wrong size - NO WORRIES - used our 15oz container of the ricotta and combined it with approx. *12-15oz of cottage cheese*. We blended it really well in the food processor, so it was really smooth like the ricotta.

For the chopped garlic, we ran out yesterday, so we used a *garlic bread spice mix* from Costco & mixed it in the bread crumbs we used in coating the eggplant. This added SUCH an unexpected dimension of flavor!!!

Now that we've gotten our substitutions out of the way....

here's how we went about creating this feast.

Combine the ricotta cheese, Italian cheese blend, a couple of eggs, the dried oregano, dried parsley, and salt & pepper. Mix it really well....we pulsed ours in the food processor and this made it so easy to spread out between layers.

Slice the eggplants into decent thickness
set up a breading assembly line with whisked eggs for the egg wash

and bread crumbs for the breading
aren't these beauties when they're all ready for cooking?

cook in oil until the breading is nice & crispy & the eggplant is cooked through

Gotta show some self-control not to eat these babies at this point! YUM!Now we put it all together in layers!

Start with sauce on the bottom of your dish (we used a 13x9 glass dish).

egglplant

ricotta cheese/egg/herbs mixture

mozzarella

sauce

eggplant

ricotta cheese/egg/herbs mixture

sauce

mozarella

Your pan will be brimming!

Bake @ 350 for 45 minutes.

While that's baking, begin assembling the side salad.

Baby Spring Green Salad Mix

Baby Red & Orange Sweet Peppers, sliced

Feta Cheese, crumbled

Candied Pecans, chopped

Favorite Salad Dressing

For the adults, add a glass of red wine on the side....juice for the kids, and......

Wah Lah!