Eggplant Parmesan

One of my favorite recipes is this Eggplant Parmesan!  I've checked lots of Pinterest pins on this and watched it made on The Chew and have sort of adopted my own way of making it.  It's actually pretty simple, but there are lots of parts to put together!  I think the most important part is the sauce - use whatever marinara sauce you like the best!  I like to make my own using some garlic, onions, crushed tomatoes, garlic and onion powder, a little allspice, and some brown sugar.  I also add some fresh basil to the mix!  The next component is the eggplant.  I slice up my eggplant and lay it over some paper towels.  I salt each side and leave it for about a half an hour to "sweat" the bitterness out.  While that's "sweating", I boil the spaghetti.  I like to make my spaghetti with half whole wheat and half regular.  Once it's ready, I strain it and leave it on the side until I'm ready to put together the whole thing.  After sweating the eggplant I fry it by dipping it in flour, then beaten eggs, and then seasoned Panko breadcrumbs.  Fry them until they're golden brown!

I place the spaghetti into my baking dish first, add some marinara sauce over top, sprinkle some parmesan cheese over it, then add the fried eggplant, a little more marinara and parmesan, a little mozzerella, and top it off with some fresh basil.  I put this in the oven for about 20 minutes and then broil for another 5.  This dish is huge and very filling!  Usually lasts our family a few days!

Here's how it turned out:

Here's the completed Eggplant Parmesan!

Last layer before the basil

Layer of Eggplant on top

Layer of Parmesan over the spaghetti

Marinara sauce over the pasta

Pasta in the bottom of the baking dish

Fried eggplant

Homemade Marinara

Eggplant slices on a paper towel, salted to "sweat"

My 2 year old's portion of Eggplant Parmesan cut up :)

Pinterest Repin

I always get notifications that other people repin some of the "pins" I have on Pinterest.  Last night 2 people repinned this mushroom and sundried tomato recipe I've tried in the past and I decided to try it again last night!  I realized that I didn't have any mushrooms, so I just made it with sundried tomatoes and some sauteed red onion and garlic instead.  I also didn't have the half and half or the heavy cream and just used whole milk instead (we ALWAYS have whole milk in the fridge for my 2 year old!).  I had some left over shredded parmesan from the eggplant roll up dish the night before, and so, that made the recipe doable!

I also decided to grill some asparagus on the side using my cast iron grill pan on the stovetop.  Everything turned out great!  My husband and 2 year old loved it :)

Here's the Pinterest recipe I loosely followed:
http://juliasalbum.com/2014/02/sun-dried-tomato-and-mushroom-pasta/


Here's how dinner turned out last night!

I didn't have any fettuccine and instead I used an egg noodle I had in the pantry!

Grilled asparagus

We got hungry later that night and I decided to make a caprese salad!  Costco just happened to have some great mozzerella and I bought amazing tomatoes from Publix earlier in the week.  Topped it with some fresh basil from my herb garden and some olive oil and balsamic......mmmmmm.