Meat-Stuffed Eggplant

    It's eggplant again, friends!  We've already established that it's one of my favorite vegetables, so I thought I'd share another recipe.....this time stuffing it with all sorts of "yumminess"!  And I love these baby eggplant........so cute!!  This is great for dinner with a salad and some good bread on the side.  It would also make a nice addition to a buffet table.

Parmigiana Bianca ("White" Parmigiana)

    I think I've shared my love of eggplant before.  Besides being hearty and delicious, you can do so many different things with it!  And....because I love it, it makes a pretty regular appearance on our dinner table in various forms.  Two of my favorites are Eggplant Parmesan Stacks and Caponata.  You definitely will want to give those recipes a try!

    All over southern Italy, the name "parmigiana" refers to a dish of vegetables layered with tomato sauce and cheese and baked in the oven.  Now, for those of you who have an aversion to the "red sauce", typically used in these dishes, this is the recipe for you!  It has no tomatoes, but all the meaty eggplant and gooey cheese you'd expect from an eggplant parmesan! Serve it with a nice salad and a crusty loaf of bread and you've got a great dinner!  Or, it would also make a nice vegetable side dish to serve alongside some grilled meat.

Caponata

    Well, summer is quickly winding down and the kids are back in school.  Soon fall will be here and the air  will feel a little cooler.  But, for now, gardeners everywhere are still reaping the rewards of their labor in the form of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers, etc.  This recipe is a great way to make use of all of those vegetables.

Eggplant Parmesan Stacks

    I like many different vegetables, but one that I really love, is eggplant.  It's so versatile!  You can stuff it, roll up filled slices of it, layer it with cheese and herbs, make a relish with it, bread it, bake it, broil it, or do like my dad used to do with zucchini ..... fry it up and have it in a sandwich!  DELICIOUS!!
    Eggplant Parmesan is probably one of the most popular ways to eat eggplant.  Although I love it, I haven't loved all the steps needed to put it together.  As I mentioned in my post about apple fritters, I don't like the smell of things frying in a lot of oil and, typically, to make eggplant parmesan, you dredge the slices of eggplant in flour, dip them in egg, then in breadcrumbs, before you fry them in lots of oil!  Some time ago I saw this recipe on the show Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn that really caught my attention.