Back to School

We are Back!

Mel and I have been horrible bloggers this entire summer... we were probably sad once we returned home that we wouldn't get to blog about our trips anymore :( but it was probably a good break for us since we are on our computers so much during the school year.

This summer wasn't super experimental for me in the cooking department because I was always rushing home from work and then off to events or to hang with friends, but one thing I did make was Eggplant Parmesana. We were shown very generally how to make this in Italy so I wanted to try and home and see if I could replicate it...at least to the best of my ability.

 First I cut up two eggplants and soaked them in salt water to get rid of the bitterness.

I can't remember how long I let it soak...I think at least an hour or so
Then you fry it up with a ton of olive oil, as the Italians would say. I never used to cook or fry with olive oil unless it was just salads because of the low boiling point but apparently as long as you cook it at medium temperature that is not high enough to cause problems. I will have to research more into this though. When in doubt use grapeseed oil!

Then while this was all going on I made a homemade fresh tomato sauce. I used fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden and poured in a lot of olive oil to get that amazing taste I was used to in Europe (of high fat foods).

While I was waiting for everything to cook, I grated some fresh parmesan and preheated the oven to 350 degrees Celsius.

Then you just layer it.

Then topped it with some Mozzarella

Cook it in the oven for 50 minutes and out comes this:

I'm not sure if it was good as the mom's cooking in Italy but it was still delicious and I was pretty happy with it, my family loved it and ate it all up.

-A