i do enjoy cooking, but grocery shopping, eh not so much. BUT the other day, i found myself on the other side of town in the best publix EVER, the one by dadeland. man, if that is your normal publix, i envy you, now THAT'S a produce section.
i was inspired by the cutest 3 pack of little eggplants i picked up there.
i woke up yesterday wanting eggplant parm, but i'm not big on frying, so i went on a mission to find a baked eggplant parm recipe. and what do you know? i found one...
Eggplant Parmesan II
ok, so i have to preface that this was a super involved, time consuming recipe, but hey i only needed to check the oven, not worry about splattering oil all over the place so i was a happy camper.
so after reading scores of reviews, i saw that i had to bake them at 425 for 10 min per side, but after i did that, the eggplant was nice and crispy but still wasn't fork tender, so i put them back in the oven for another 5 min and they came out good.
the assembly was fun, the only other change i made was instead of mozzarella, i used an aged provolone blend that had mozz in it and added some shredded Parmesan/Romano blend. when i popped this sucker into the oven for the last 35 minutes, the most delicious smell filled my home.
i never judge on smell alone, so i scrambled to make a side dish, i grabbed a 1/4 filled box of angel hair pasta and another 1/4 filled box of what i thought was more angel hair pasta (cause well, that's how i roll :P), but when i threw it into the pot it looked different. CRAP! i threw in half angel hair (cooking time 4 minutes) and half spaghetti (cooking time 11 min), ay ya yi! i threw some olive oil and some crushed garlic in a pan and heated on low while i tried to figure out how i was going to save the pasta.
save the pasta, save the dinner...
i really hoped my nose was predicting a really good dinner and decided to cook the pasta for 7 minutes, a little fuzzy math and a lot of trying to fish out one strand of spaghetti got me to this number. it worked...phew. tossed the oil/garlic in with the pasta and topped with the parm/romano and some 'fresh' basil.
served it up and viola!
served it to my hubby and as he inhaled it, i asked him, do you like it or did you just not eat lunch? lol. he said it's really good, cept the bigger slices have chewy skins is it supposed to be like that? um, yeah babe, it is. do you want more?! :P
so all in all a good dinner, a slight mishap on the pasta-front and on the chewy skins, but all is well.
next time i may sweat the eggplant or just cut more uniform slices, but it's definitely a keeper. ;)
i was inspired by the cutest 3 pack of little eggplants i picked up there.
i woke up yesterday wanting eggplant parm, but i'm not big on frying, so i went on a mission to find a baked eggplant parm recipe. and what do you know? i found one...
Eggplant Parmesan II
ok, so i have to preface that this was a super involved, time consuming recipe, but hey i only needed to check the oven, not worry about splattering oil all over the place so i was a happy camper.
so after reading scores of reviews, i saw that i had to bake them at 425 for 10 min per side, but after i did that, the eggplant was nice and crispy but still wasn't fork tender, so i put them back in the oven for another 5 min and they came out good.
the assembly was fun, the only other change i made was instead of mozzarella, i used an aged provolone blend that had mozz in it and added some shredded Parmesan/Romano blend. when i popped this sucker into the oven for the last 35 minutes, the most delicious smell filled my home.
i never judge on smell alone, so i scrambled to make a side dish, i grabbed a 1/4 filled box of angel hair pasta and another 1/4 filled box of what i thought was more angel hair pasta (cause well, that's how i roll :P), but when i threw it into the pot it looked different. CRAP! i threw in half angel hair (cooking time 4 minutes) and half spaghetti (cooking time 11 min), ay ya yi! i threw some olive oil and some crushed garlic in a pan and heated on low while i tried to figure out how i was going to save the pasta.
save the pasta, save the dinner...
i really hoped my nose was predicting a really good dinner and decided to cook the pasta for 7 minutes, a little fuzzy math and a lot of trying to fish out one strand of spaghetti got me to this number. it worked...phew. tossed the oil/garlic in with the pasta and topped with the parm/romano and some 'fresh' basil.
served it up and viola!
served it to my hubby and as he inhaled it, i asked him, do you like it or did you just not eat lunch? lol. he said it's really good, cept the bigger slices have chewy skins is it supposed to be like that? um, yeah babe, it is. do you want more?! :P
so all in all a good dinner, a slight mishap on the pasta-front and on the chewy skins, but all is well.
next time i may sweat the eggplant or just cut more uniform slices, but it's definitely a keeper. ;)
***UPDATE***
ok, so this was so much better the next day. it's like the ingredients got to know each other better overnight -they had a few laughs and came out of the fridge much better the next day! :)
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1 comment:
LOL -> Save the pasta, Save the dinner
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