Eggplant Parmesan

It's been a busy week and I haven't gotten round to cooking much. Okay, I did cook yesterday but that was just caramelized leek quiche and a pumpkin pie. The first I've already posted and the second... well let me say that no one except me enjoyed it :( Unfortunate for the "others" they are stuck with it for dessert until it is over :)
Today was busy too but the eggplant was not going to last much longer. I figured eggplant Parmesan would be a good option to use it up. I search for the recipe on food.com (that's where I first found the recipe). But oh my, our internet connection has been really slow for many websites (thank goodness not blogger) and I could not download the recipe. I had to kind of go at it blind. So what you have here is not a traditional eggplant Parmesan but some modified version of it!

Serves 8; Preparation time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 kg	Eggplant
	Salt for sprinkling
1	Egg
1 tbsp.	Flour
3 tbsp.	Milk
2 cups	Bread crumbs
	Oil for frying
800 ml	Pasta sauce (tomato)
3 tbsp.	Cream
1/4 cup	Basil leaves (loosely packed)
2 tbsp.	Thyme
125 g	Fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup	Grated Parmesan

Method:

I'd decided on eggplant Parmesan pretty early in the afternoon. So I took a break from my work and sliced the eggplant into slices about 1 cm thick. (Note this is a European eggplant so it's big and fat. If you have the Asian variety I would slice it lengthwise instead of crosswise.) Then I sprinkled it liberally with salt and put it in a colander to rest. I went back to work and literally forgot about it!

Next there was the rush... 15 minutes to move dinner along before running out of the house to pick up my youngest one from Viola lessons. What could I possibly get done in 15 minutes and without a recipe? So I just guessed. I put two skillets on the cooker on high heat (with one I was never going to be done in time). Then I washed the salt off the eggplant and beat up an egg with some flour and milk. I didn't measure anything precisely but I know that I used 2 heaped teaspoons of flour, which is probably the same as in the ingredients above. I must have put about 3 tablespoons of milk in. But you know what, it's not a precise science. I just needed something that would stick the breadcrumbs to the eggplant. Anything that you use to make a cutlet or Chinese roll should do too. I do believe that the egg makes it crunchy so don't leave that out. 

To fry eggplant you need a lot of oil. There is something about eggplant that makes it only taste good if it is doused in oil! So I poured some oil into the pan then one by one patted the eggplant dry with a kitchen towel, to remove some of the dampness so that the batter adheres better, dipped them in the batter then into the breadcrumbs and fried them. When I turned them I added extra oil to the pan else the breadcrumbs would not become golden brown. And I reduced the heat else the breadcrumbs start burning and that is a mess. Here is what they looked like:

It took me 15 minutes to finish all of them and get out of the house. I was in time to pick up my child. Phew!!

Once I got home again I had to put everything together. I first set the oven to 160 Celsius and then got to work. I picked my largest casserole dish and poured in about 300 ml of pasta sauce from a jar. Then I arranged the fried eggplant on top of it. Since I had so much eggplant I put two layers of eggplant. Then I used the cream to clean out the empty pasta sauce jar and poured that on top.

There were some herbs that still had not died! A basil plant, which is on it's last legs and the thyme plant which was bought for the quiche. Actually the thyme has been doing really well since I started watering it. I didn't bother picking off the leaves of the thyme because the stalks were really soft so I just kind of broke it up over the dish. I did the same with the basil leaves (no stalks please!).

Then the rest of the tomato sauce was poured over and evenly distributed. Finally on went the cheese. The fresh Mozzarella was shredded and the Parmesan finely grated. All of this was popped in the oven for around 30 to 40 minutes. At some point I felt like the cheese was not browning quickly enough so I increased the temperature by 10 degrees. This helped speed up the cooking.

And while that all was cooking I managed to clean up the kitchen and make some pasta to eat with it. I took the opportunity to finish the linguine that I used for the half an hour pasta with mushroom dish. You can also eat it with bread or rice and serve a nice green salad with it if you want to be fancy.

Vegetarian Pot Pie

Oh, I was so craving for something wholesome and hot to eat!

The bright September sunshine had given way to clouds and there was a chill in the air and thus the craving. But there were other problems to be solved: like the ton of vegetables sitting in my fridge just begging to be eaten. I pulled them all out and found that I had quite a colourful array.

Remembering the taste of the chicken pie's my mother used to make when I was young, inspired me to turn the veggies into a pot pie (or pot pie's as it was since I don't have a proper large pie dish). So I did my usual thing, I Googled "vegetarian pot pie recipe". Nothing interesting showed up, nothing that would use up MY particular array of vegetables. So I decided to go it alone! The result turned out quite okay and pleased the whole family. There was a bit of haggling over the pie crusts. My husband doesn't like his crusts so I thought I could eat his but he wasn't parting today. My little one was saving them to the end so I pretended to be dense and asked her if she'd set them aside because she didn't want them (reaching toward her plate as I was saying this). Her plate moved super fast. Needless to say there was no chance of getting a bite of someone else's crusts. My older daughter told me that she was not parting either, not today!

Serves: 4 as an appetiser or 2 as a main

Ingredients:

Pastry:
	6 oz (175 g)	Flour
	3 oz (90 g)	Cold butter
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling:
	1 1/2 oz (40 g)	Butter
	1 cup	Sliced onions
	1 tbsp.	Chopped garlic
	2 tbsp.	Flour
	1 1/2 cup	Water
	1/2	Veggie cube
	2	Bay leaves
	2 bowls	Random vegetables cut into bite sized cubes
		Salt and Pepper
	1	Egg, lightly beaten

Method:

I firmly believe that the pastry requires it's own post! So if you've discovered this after I've written the pastry post (I guess I should have done that first!) here is the link: Pastry Post. But if you are an ardent follower and just live to read my rantings then the above link DOES NOT WORK! But then that is not an issue because you'll soon see the recipe here.

So start off by making the pastry, wrap it in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest.

You need to prepare your vegetables into bite sized pieces. If you are making individual pot pies like I did then it's not possible to eat your pie with a knife and fork. Actually it's quite challenging to cut anything which is inside a ramekin! My two bowls of veggie were just enough for everyone to be full but not stuffed. Next time I will make a bit more.

Notice, that all my veggies take about the same time to cook. Nothing is going to get over cooked if I throw it all in the pan at the same time. This was just luck. If you have things that cook quicker you'll have to add them later (mushrooms for example). 

Put a pan on the stove on medium heat and add the butter. Let the butter slowly melt. If you happen to burn the butter (i.e. it turns brown) trash the butter, wipe out the pan and start over. Burnt butter tastes disgusting and thus so will your pie.

Once the butter has melted add the garlic and onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir them regularly so that they are evenly cooked. 

Next add the flour and continue to stir until the flour is cooked. What on earth it means for the flour to be "cooked" and how you can tell that it is "cooked" I have no idea! So I generally cook it for about 30 seconds. If you want a bit of colour to your gravy then you have to let the flour brown a bit. 

Next add the water and the veggie cube all in one go and continue stirring. (You can substitute vegetable stock instead of the water and veggie cube.) Thanks to the onions and your vigorous stirring your gravy should not form any lumps. Once the gravy is smooth (i.e. all well combined, no lumps) throw in the bay leaves. Allow the gravy to simmer until it thickens. This is not a very thick gravy. 

Once the gravy has thickened add the vegetables, ...

and stir until it's all well combined. Next add salt and pepper to your taste. 

Cover the pan and let the contents simmer and cook for around 20 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Of course the time needed to cook will depend on the vegetables used. Be careful not to over cook them because they have to go back into the oven and you don't want to be eating mush.

While the filling is cooking take out the pastry from the fridge and get ready to make the pie lids. I used four small ramekins for my pot pies. You can use a large pie pan or any other pan as long as it is oven proof. 

I cut my pastry into four pieces and rolled each one out so that it was just larger than the top of the ramekin. If you want to have a base for your pie you will need to make double the amount of pastry. 

Then once the vegetables are cooked divide them equally among the ramekins.

Pop the pie lid on top and trim the sides. I kept on as much pastry as possible and secured the sides by pressing down on the outside of the dish. Don't forget to make some slits on the top so that the steam can come out. Make a pretty pattern with a sharp knife.

Then brush the lid with the beaten egg and voila! it is ready for the oven. 

Bake this baby (or these babies!) at 180 Celsius in a fan oven or 200 C in a conventional oven (that would be 400 F in most American ovens) and after around 30 minutes (I'm guessing, I forgot to look at the time when I pulled it out of the oven), once the pastry is golden brown it is ready to be served. Be careful it is extremely hot. Ours sat on the table for at least 20 minutes before they were eaten (hubby got stuck at the office) and they were still very hot.