What I Made for Dinner: August 30, 2009

Eggplant parmigiana, gnocchi with sage and brown butter.

We grew these guys in the backyard:


and tonight we wanted to use them. My mother-in-law graciously gave me her copy of the most recent Everyday Food magazine, which has a ton of good-looking recipes. One of those was for an eggplant parmigiana that turned out to be absolutely delicious.

The tomato sauce I used was just a can of whole tomatoes, pureed and simmered with a tablespoon of olive oil until thick.

While it simmered, I had to salt the eggplant slices and let them sit for half an hour.


In fact, this recipe took a lot longer than I thought it would, owing to my careless reading. It was a little maddening because I was up against the Sunday night soccer practice deadline.

Never fear, I can go fast when I need to.

So then I had to bread and fry the eggplant slices, and layer them in a baking dish with the tomato sauce and quite a lot of cheese. Here it is mid-assembly:


Then I baked it. The Everyday Food recipe said 45 minutes at 375. Are you kidding me? Soccer deadline, Everyday Food editors! Soccer deadline! So I did 20 minutes at 400 and then broiled it to brown the top. No harm done:


Yummy!