Eggplant Lasagna
Adapted from About.com
1 lb lasagna noodles
Olive oil
1 medium eggplant, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium onion, minced
Marinara sauce*
1 lb mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
In a large saucepan, heat a small amount of olive oil. Add onion and garlic and cook until tender and fragrant. Add eggplant. Lightly saute for 3-4 minutes. Add marinara sauce. Cover and cook until eggplant is tender, about 10 minutes.
To assemble the lasagna, place a layer of the eggplant sauce on the bottom of the pan. Press noodles into the sauce. Top with another layer of sauce, then a layer of mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers of noodles, sauce, and cheese until there is a half inch of space on the top of the pan, or until you run out of ingredients.
Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes, until a fork can easily pierce the noodles. Allow to sit for 10 minutes, then serve.
My Notes:
*The tomatoes here in the store look absolutely terrible, and I didn't have all the ingredients to make a canned sauce from scratch, so I used a jar of marinara sauce. Blasphemy, I know. I do have a recipe for a roasted red pepper sauce to go with eggplant parmesean that I might try to make after I get back from my current rotation, but until then, just use whatever sauce floats your boat. I'll be adapting this one for a while, I think, before I get just the perfect balance of flavors.
My friend made eggplant parmesean for girls night the other night, and it was my first time really having eggplant. I had bought some before to make eggplant parm, but I got weirded out by the texture of the eggplant when I was cutting it, so I didn't ultimately use the eggplant. Go figure. But, this dish she made was absolutely amazing. So, I had to replicate it. Except that I still had a box of lasagna noodles in my pantry that I needed to get rid of, so I decided to start a little more basic.
Another friend and I had this last night for dinner. It was pretty good. The sauce needed some work (more heat and a little more spice), but I blame that on the fact that I didn't actually make the sauce from scratch. It had enough texture that I wasn't feeling like I was just eating noodles and cheese (which is my problem with a lot of 'vegetarian' lasagnas), so score. And I didn't have to deal with using ricotta (though I did buy some, so now I have to figure out something to use that in).
