As I mentioned a couple of months ago I have been thinking about posting a few vegetarian dinners, today I am going to follow through in that thought with eggplant parmigiana. I know you might be thinking that it can't be vegetarian because it has cheese in it or whatever other issue you can come up with but with all respect I don't care. Quite often I hear people get into arguments over semantics, this means that they agree on everything except how something should be named. A classic example is the debate over pop and soda, but no matter what name you use it's still the same carbonated beverage. I don't care for semantics and more over I don't care to argue semantics.
With that said I classify vegetarian as food that doesn't contain meat (including fish) and vegan as foods that don't contain anything animal related. If you are a vegetarian or vegan I don't mean to offend you but if you or a vegetarian or vegan you probably haven't been reading these posts anyway. If this dinner does fall within your dietary restrictions I encourage you to try it. If your family and friends are hesitant to try vegetarian food I say don't tell them until after they try it, if they don't like it order pizzas.
Now that I've given you my opinion on vegetarian-vegan semantics let's take a look at today's recipe.
Eggplant Parmigiana
Prep time 15 Min. Cook time 35 Min. Serves 4
Ingredients
1 spray cooking spray
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs, Italian-style
1 Tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 medium eggplant
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350f. Coat a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray; set aside.
Combine bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and garlic powder in a medium-size bowl; set aside. Remove skin from eggplant and trim of ends; slice eggplant into 1/2-inch thick slices.
Dip eggplant into egg whites and then into bread crumb mixture. Bake eggplant on a nonstick cookie sheet until lightly browned, about 20 to 25 minutes, flipping once.
Place a layer of eggplant on bottom of prepared baking dish, then add 1/3 of tomato sauce and 1/3 of mozzarella cheese. Repeat with 2 more layers in the same order. Bake until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling, about 10 minutes more. slice into 4 pieces and serve.
This recipe yields 4 servings.
I don't have a lot of vegetarian recipes in my repertoire but of the ones I do this one is very popular among my family and friends. I like to serve it over whole-wheat capellini. If you try this dinner, check back here and let me know how it turned out.
Next week - Grilled Tandoori Chicken and Red Onion Skewers with Couscous or Passport- Backyard.
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