Don't fret! I can see the concern in your face as you read this. I'm not waxing poetic in a farewell tour but instead just the opposite! With graduation behind me (Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!) I finally have time to really do things for me again like scrapbook, and blog, and even run for fun! Jo Anna and I will be running in a 5k in Disney World in November and I can't wait! Naturally it is the Epcot Food and Wine Festival run (seriously, we really love the food world...) so we will be sure to write about the good things we find to taste.
So anywho, all this brings me to my dinner creation tonight: noodle-less eggplant lasagna. Not only do I have a great recipe and cooking experience to share, I also dreamed up what I would like to create next for this blog! More of that to come but first...
Eggplant. Mom might disagree with me but as far as I am concerned I ate my first piece of eggplant when I was 25 years old when the ladies I work with brought a dish for a potluck. It is not something I ever saw Mom or Grandma(s) cook. I certainly do not blame them, the mountains of KY and the peidmont of SC are not exactly known for eggplant dishes, let's be real. Okra? yes. Grits? mhmm. molassey pie on your drop biscuits? damn skippy. But eggplant? yeah, no. So it is only recently I have been dabbling in eggplant dishes and I have to say, I am a fan! I have fried it for stir fry and roasted it for the top of baked ziti, so I was comfortable with this lasagna.
I am more or less following the Sugar Busters diet and while whole wheat pasta is cool, I felt eliminating the pasta all together would be even better, hence the search for eggplant lasagna. I decided on this recipe but really did make quite a few adjustments.
Step one is handling the eggplant. First peel it with your trusty vegetable peeler, nothing fancy to see here. Next, cut off the top and bottom so you have flat ends. The recipe suggests 1/4 inch thick, lengthwise slices to mimic noodles. I bought a mandolin not long ago and this was an excellent time to justify the purchase! Now, I do feel the need to comment here on safety. I am the WORST with knives and the mandolin is like a rack of knives on steroids. I am 2 for 3 on slicing myself on this beast but luckily I still have all my fingertips (more or less after tonight's slip) and have not needed stitches. This being said, use the damn food guard it comes with. I thought it was too awkward with the lengthwise eggplant and it resulted in me slicing off a few layers of skin...so I wised up and then things went great! If you don't have a mandolin you can obviously slice up the eggplant with a sharp knife, just to try to keep your slices consistent. 
Set the oven at 425, spray cookie sheets with olive oil, salt and pepper all the slices that are in a single layer (took me three cookie sheets) and roast 5 minutes. Take them out, flip them over, season, and bake 5 more minutes.
In the meantime you can start your meat sauce. I diced up 1 yellow onion and started that in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of my 12 inch cast iron. I kept the heat pretty low because I was chopping and adding along the way and I did not want things burning. Next came 4 small cloves of garlic.
For the meat, I chose to use 1.5 pounds ground turkey and .5 pound mild Italian sausage (If they had had hot at the store that would have been the choice). I added this in and turned up the heat just a smidge to get things cooking. Next comes one red bell pepper chop chopped, and then 5 baby bella mushrooms sliced.
The recipe calls for a 28 oz can tomato sauce and a can of diced tomatoes, but suggests using 3 roma tomatoes in lieu of the diced can to eliminate added sugar. I found this to be a delightful suggestion and took that route. So, in goes tomato sauce and diced roma tomatoes. At this point I also shook in 2+ tbsp italian seasoning (Giada's Tuscan herb mix to be exact, thanks Ma!), a good teaspoon plus of red chili pepper flakes, salt and pepper. I mixed it all up and let it simmer for 10 minutes.The last piece of any lasagna is the cheese. I used 1 3/4 cups ricotta (recipe called for 2 cups and the small tub was 1/4 cup short. Did not want half a container of ricotta sitting in the fridge so whatever), 2 eggs, 6 fresh basil leaves, 3 scallions, and about a half cup of shredded mozzarella. I could tell you this was to offset the lack of ricotta but in truth it was a mistake because I was listening to the World Game on tv and not paying a whole lot of attention. I can assure you this made 0 difference in the final product.
With everything made it's time to layer. Meat sauce, eggplant noodles, ricotta mix, mozzarella, Parmesan, repeat. Oven set to 375, cover in foil, bake an hour. Uncover, finish under broiler 5ish minutes til brown. I put the lasagna in the fridge before baking because I did not want to eat it until a later day. I can honestly say I did not miss the pasta in this dish at all. The sauce was spicy and full of flavor and the cheese mixture just creamy and delicious.Now, back to my 'Ah ha!' moment for this blog. As I looked at this beautiful but giant lasagna sitting on my counter cooling before going into the fridge for later, I calculated how many dinners and lunches this was going to make for me this week. The answer is a lot. And as good as it is I do not want to eat only eggplant lasagna all week. So I think my new mission is going to be finding great recipes like this one, making the full size first to get flavors right, and then adapting them to a single girl recipe. You can't always just halve a recipe and it work out. Wish me luck, and I will keep you posted along the way...
Full Ingredient List
2 eggplants, sliced 1/4'' lengthwise
salt and pepper
1 yellow onion, diced
4 small cloves garlic, diced
1.5 pound ground turkey
.5 pound ground italian sausage
1 red bell pepper, diced
5 baby bella mushrooms, sliced
3 roma tomatoes, diced
28 oz. can tomato sauce
2 heaping T italian seasoning mix
1+ t red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
1 3/4 c. ricotta
2 eggs
6+ leaves fresh basil
3 scallions, chopped finely
3ish cups grated mozzarella
1 cup grated Parmesan
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