This morning, with most of my area totally under water and my need to be out of the house by 7:30 (which turned out to be closer to 8), was a really bad choice to be feeling like that. I've recently been waking up at a unnecessarily early time, mainly because my body's in some weird sleep pattern right now. Last night I was up at 1 AM for almost an hour (I swore it was time to get up and nearly took a shower when I got a closer look at the clock and made myself go back to bed) and then this morning I woke up at 5 AM, just because my body decided it was time to get up. So I did what any normal person would do at that hour. I cooked.
...wait, you say no normal people do that at that hour? Hm. Food for thought (ha! pun intended. Forgive me, I'm a little tired).
Anyway, I proceeded to make this Scalloped Eggplant so I could have it with my dinner tonight (but I did try it this morning. Hot cereal and a bite of scalloped eggplant. Breakfast of champions), and was trying to get so much stuff chopped, put together, and trying to multitask with my breakfast, lunch, getting myself ready to get out of the house and putting my gym bag together, plus cleaning up my mess that I nearly stopped this meal right in the middle of preparing for it. But that's not my style to just stop. That's way too much food to waste.
That being said, this isn't a hard meal to put together. It's a lot of chopping (I sense a theme with that in most of my dishes lately), and a lot of sauteeing, and then, unfortunately for me, a bit of waiting in the oven, when I was a little impatient and trying to get out of the house. On a regular night, not so bad. This morning with negative time to spare, big problem.
Oh wait, hold on. This post is about scalloped eggplant, not my ability to get out of the house on time and avoid the flooded roads. Sorry.
I wasn't sure how this dish would hold up on taste factor. On the surface it seems almost a little bland. It's seasoned really only with salt and pepper, and not even a lot at that. I sauteed the veggies in a bit of butter spray so that it wouldn't stick, and found that the tomato juices created a bit of a marinade or something. The recipe says that this dish has a sweet mellow taste. I'd say that's about right. It's pretty decent, not bad as a side dish, and yes, has a very mellow taste to it. It doesn't jump out, so if you're planning on making this for dinner plan on having something maybe a little bolder with it, like a garlic chicken or something (or don't, if mellow's your thing).I liked it (or rather, the spoonful I had while it was piping hot directly out of the dish), but think it might need a little something extra to enhance it even more. Maybe a bit of oregano or basil or something.
Scalloped Eggplant (recipe by Chef Scott Doughty; recipe obtained from www.phantomgourmet.com)
Ingredients
3 lbs eggplants, peeled and diced (about 2 large eggplant)
1/4 c butter (I skipped this and used the spray, as I thought this was supposed to only keep the sauteeing veggies from sticking to the pan, but as the veggies are supposed to simmer in this I wish I might have used it or something similar, like olive oil or something)
1/4 c. finely diced green pepper
1/4 c. finely diced onion
2 lbs diced tomatoes (probably between 3-4 tomatoes, depending on the size. I used 1 large tomato and 4 smallish ones)
1 1/5 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
3 c. fresh bread crumbs (I used whole wheat)
2 Tbsp butter
Saute the green pepper and onion in 1/4 cup of butter (or spray) for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is soft and just browned.
Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper and eggplant and bring mixture to a simmer (your pan will be very full, so be careful when trying to get everything evenly heated. I'd say don't overcrowd the pan, but I did...and it still turned out okay) Cook for about 10 more minutes, or until eggplant starts to look a little bit browned.
Put the eggplant mixture into a baking dish.
Melt 2 tbs of butter and combine with the breadcrumbs, and spread over the top of the eggplant (this is a lot of breadcrumbs. Maybe decrease this by a cup if you'd like).
Bake in a 375 degree oven for 40 minutes.
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