Tag: Eggplant Recipes

Baked Eggplant & Tomatoes with Pesto

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This is a delicious dish that looks gorgeous, but is very easy and really ticks all the boxes for me! The eggplant gets all creamy and the cheese gets all melty, and the pesto gets all… pesto-ey. Well, you get the point.

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, stem end removed and sliced lengthwise in 1/2″ slices (save end pieces for another use)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
2 Tbsp Pesto
4-5 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/2″ slices (Any tomato is actually fine.)
1/2 cup grated Mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper the sliced eggplants and place in a bowl, leaning on the edge so the water can run off a bit from the eggplant. Let drain for at least 15 minutes.

Lay the first slice of eggplant in a 9×12 baking dish. Spread about 2 tsp of Pesto on the first slice. Top with a layer of tomatoes, and sprinkle on a spoonful each of Mozzarella and grated Romano. Slide the layer over until it is at an angle leaning on the side of the dish.

Repeat for the second layer, sliding eggplant over to partially overlap the first layer.

Continue with all remaining slices of eggplant. Sprinkle any remaining cheese on top.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove foil, and bake another 20 minutes.

Serve hot – it’s so good!

Pepper, Mushrooms & Eggplant on Pasta

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We had roasted eggplant a couple of days ago, and had some leftover.  I also had peppers in the fridge and a bunch of mushrooms, so we threw together a lovely dish. A little parmesan would have been good, but we were out. It was delicious as is.

Maya wanted “hodge-podge” pasta tonight. (We keep a large mason jar with the tail ends of all different pastas. Even if they cook at slightly different times, they’re usually close enough to be fine, plus it’s fun to have all different shapes.)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red pepper, sliced thinly
1 green pepper, sliced thinly
2 Tbsp butter and 1 tsp of bacon drippings (optional)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or 1/4 tsp garlic powder
8-10 large mushrooms, sliced fairly thinly
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Roasted eggplant
Pasta

Start water boiling for pasta. When you start the mushrooms, you can start the pasta and it comes out about the same time.

Meantime, heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add peppers to oil and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Turn the heat down a bit, and loosely cover the pan with a lid. (I used a lid that was smaller than the pan, but still covered the peppers.) After a couple of minutes, I uncovered them, and stirred again. Back on with the cover for another couple of minutes.

Stir again, and remove the peppers. Wipe out the pan in case anything was getting close to burning. Add butter to the pan, and the bacon drippings. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes until it starts to brown. Add the mushrooms and cook them the same way you did the peppers. Stir fry, then cover, stir again, cover and stir again.  For the final cook, you’ll want to leave them uncovered until most of the liquid dries up.

Add the peppers back into the pan, along with any juices. Using a spoon, scrape the flesh out of the roasted eggplants along the edge of the pan. Break up the eggplants into smaller chunks. Some parts will be stringy, but that’s okay. Toss with the peppers and mushrooms to warm and season with salt and pepper to taste. Yum!

I added another little pat of butter to my pasta since I love butter!

Roasted Eggplant

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So simple, so delicious – Maya and I made this for dinner last night.

When you start with a lovely, fresh vegetable, you don’t need to do much to bring out the best flavor, and this is a perfect example.  Roasting the eggplant brings out its sweetness and tenderness and salt, pepper and a bit of butter make it crazy delicious.

4 small eggplants, halved, with the stem end removed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt  (I’m guessing here – I really just used a good pinch.)
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Butter

Heat oven to 400. Pour the olive oil into the center of a baking pan and slide the eggplants around cut side down to get olive oil all over them. Flip them back over and sprinkle them with the salt and pepper.

Roast for a good 20 minutes or until they have sort of sunk in, and are browning on the top.

Melt a pat of butter on top of each eggplant and serve in the skin. When eating, just scrape out the inside and leave the skins.  Nirvana – sheer veggie Nirvana…

Wonder if there is any left?

Roasted Eggplant with Tahini Sauce

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From the Wall Street Journal – though simplified. Eggplant and tahini are so good together! The original recipe called for fresh herbs on top, but we like it just like this.

6 small eggplants, halved, skin and stem intact
olive oil
kosher salt

Put eggplants on a baking pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast at 425 for 20 minutes.

1/4 cup tahini paste
2 Tbsp lemon juice
sprinkle of garlic powder
1/2 to 1 tsp salt
1/4 cup water

Mix all together and drizzle over eggplant just before serving. Trader Joe’s also sells a Tahini sauce which you can substitute for the tahini paste and water. Just use 1/2 cup of the sauce instead.

You can use larger eggplants – just cut them in slices about 1″ thick.