We had friends over for dinner last weekend, and I made the first serious eggplant Parmesan that I've ever attempted. My mom used to make this dish when I was a kid, and I absolutely hated it! I hated eggplant in general - something about the texture was hard for me to swallow - literally! My tastebuds seem to have changed, because eggplant is now one of my favorite vegetables. We had some on sale at the C0-op (from T&D Willey Farm in the San Joaquin Valley,) so I decided to try my hand at eggplant Parmesan.
I got my first local Willow Creek heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market on Saturday - the green one is a black pineapple, and the yellow is an azoychka. I mixed them with a few regular red tomatoes (also from T&D Willey,) and some chopped onion and garlic to make the sauce....
Here it is beginning to cook. I let the sauce cook down while I fried the eggplant....
Here was the frying set-up. First, I dipped the eggplant slices in flour, then eggs, and then breadcrumbs. Johnny has a sandwich every morning for breakfast, but doesn't eat the heels - this was the perfect opportunity to use them up!
Then I fried them in olive oil till the breadcrumbs were crispy.
Here's all the eggplant fried and ready to go.
I had a few slices of eggplant left over, so I chopped them up and added them to the sauce, and let it cook for a while longer. while I was waiting, I made a super simple pesto with basil, olive oil, Parmesan, and lemon juice. Then it was time to layer!
First I made a thin layer of sauce, then eggplant....
then pesto....
...more sauce, cheese, eggplant, pesto, sauce, cheese, eggplant, then I finished it with a layer of cheese, and put it in the oven to bake....And here it is!
It went perfectly with this beautiful garden salad that our friends brought!
This was one of those dishes that I almost couldn't believe that I made myself - it was really really really good! Plus we had some great leftovers for the rest of the week!
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