Thursday, January 14, 2010

Trying to Get On the Wagon


Okay you know when you start getting harassed by relatives to blog again, that you have totally fallen off the wagon. Joel and I try to eat reasonably healthy (too bad a bottle of wine in one sitting isn’t considered such…sigh), but along with the thrones of other fools we decided to recommit to healthy eating after the holidays. Thus my leaned down eggplant parmesan.

Before I get yelled at that this is not healthy… I know, I get it. I am not calling this boiled chicken breast, steamed broccoli, with a side of water. It is, after all, eggplant parmesan---ish.

I didn’t bread the eggplant. I sliced and salted it and let is sweat for about 45 minutes to an hour. I then with a brush coated a non stick with oil and cooked the slices. I covered it with a lid to try and hold in most of the moister. To my surprise.. .it caramelized nicely and all said I used ¼ of oil for 1 and a half eggplants.

I then sautéed 1 lb. lean ground beef, with fennel and onion, and seasoning.

In a pot, threw more fennel and onion and sweat that out and then put a container of crushed tomatoes and 4 grated garlic cloves and abut ¼ of wine and let that cook down.

Then I layered starting with eggplant, then beef, sauce, and repeat. I ended with sauce and large amounts of parmesan and then sliced fresh mozzarella and baked at 350 for 30.

Sorry for the short handed instructions…getting back on the wagon can be hard J I will let you know later how it turned out!


Happy new year all!!

7 comments:

Chef E said...

Your so funny! Welcome back and a nice meal you have presented to us! We missed you...

Coleens Recipes said...

I WILL be checking back to see the thumbs up or thumbs down rating. Dieting is the pits, especially after such a "pig-out holiday" like we just had.

Ashley @ The Happy Little Home said...

Glad your back! I know what you mean about getting started again. You just get into a rut. However, I missed your posts, and this looks delicous!

Donna-FFW said...

Nice to see you aroind again.. this leaned down eggplant dish sounds like a fantastic version of the heavier model.

Swestie said...

Glad you're back!

Chris said...

Happy New Year to you too!

I try to stay off the wagon, it's too rough of a ride. (ha ha)

I have wondered how you guys have been but didn't want to harass you. Thought I'd leave that to the relatives;)

Unknown said...

thumbs up from me... different from full on eggplant parm, but just as good - trust me, you will never think "diet" when you eat this...