Eggplant

[Momtofour]

I would love to hear your favorite recipe with eggplant. Never tried it and figured now is the time.

Thanks

[MotherOfGizmo]

Slice it, dip it in egg, coat w/ parmesean and fry it.

Or use it in place of the noodles in lasagna.

[Momtofour]

Thank you. I really want to make it. I'm going to try it for lunch.

[not2late]

I make ratatouille. I cheat when I do it because the traditional way is too involved. Anyhow, you chop the eggplant into 2 inch cubes. Add cubed zucchini or summer squash, a roughly chopped tomato, chopped onion. Mix it all together with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Spread it into a large greased baking dish. Bake uncovered at 375 degrees F for about an hour, stirring the veggies so they cook evenly. Pull it out of the oven and while it's still very hot mix in a couple of minced garlic cloves, chopped fresh herbs (parsley, rosemary, basil, whatever), and a tablespoon or two of extra virgin olive oil. Dried herbs will work too. Stir, and let it sit until it's room temperature or slightly warmer. You can eat it warm as a side dish or refrigerate it overnight and eat it as a cold side dish. It's really good if you mix some into an omelette.

[tickletussler]

Re: Eggplant

Hi Momtofour, one of the mods (Moochiecat) did a thread on eggplants. There are some great ideas in there - check it out!

http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=71276&highlight=eggplant

Cheers

[Miss Phode]

I slice it, brush it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and grill it. We had this just the other night.

[Momtofour]

Mother of Gizmo----I tried your recipe. I like eggplant! It's nice to have a new veggie to eat. I'm going to experiment with more later. My husband loved it too. Now I need to get the kids to give it a try.

Thanks again everyone for the recipes.

[Momtofour]

I noticed that some of the recipees called for removing the seeds from the eggplant. I didn't do this and it seemed fine. It seems like if I removed all the area that had seeds there wouldn't be much substance left. What do you do?

[not2late]

I noticed that some of the recipees called for removing the seeds from the eggplant. I didn't do this and it seemed fine. It seems like if I removed all the area that had seeds there wouldn't be much substance left. What do you do?

I don't remove the seeds from the eggplant I use. I guess, if you use a big eggplant, then you can knock off the excess seeds in it, or try to pick a younger eggplant because they don't have as many seeds as a older one.

[tickletussler]

Do your eggplants taste bitter?

Here we often get eggplants that are big or overgrown and can have a slightly bitter taste. so the way around this is to slice it and sprinkle with salt and let it sit for a bit. Then rinse off excess salt. The salt pulls out excess moisture and the bitterness and it fries better afterwards.

[PrincessTracy]

When you slice the eggplant to fry or grill, do you remove the purple skin? or do you eat it? (I've never had eggplant either and want to try it)

[tickletussler]

:yes you can eat the skin - there's fibre in it that you can use to subtract to get net carbs, so it's better for you.

Depends on what you wanna make too. There are some dishes where you scoop out the middle, mix with spices, herbs, mince and stuff it all back into the middle so you eat it as a stuffed eggplant - you leave the skin on then.

But if you're making a roasted eggplant dip, when you roast it you gotta take the skin off or your dip will end up too bitty? Know what I mean?

so all depends on how you wanna eat it, you can just wash the skin real well and eat it, or peel it off.

[PrincessTracy]

Thanks!

I think we might try it sliced and grilled or fried. :yes

[ana]

I doubt this is induction friendly, but it sure is good

Eggplant Casserole

Ingredients:
4 cups eggplant - sliced thin
10 ounces provolone cheese - sliced
8 ounces mozzarella cheese - shredded
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic - sliced
1 cup mushrooms - sliced
1/2 cup celery - chopped
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
16 ounces Low Carb Spaghetti sauce
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Saute lean ground beef in frying pan with mushrooms, garlic, onion, celery and Italian seasonings. Fry until the meat is no longer pink. Drain any excess oil and remove. Peel eggplant and slice it very thin.

Grease bottom and sides of a 9x13 glass baking dish with olive oil on bottom and sides. Layer half the eggplant on bottom of pan. Sprinkle eggplant with additional Italian seasoning if desired. Layer half of the meat mixture, half of the sauce and half of the provolone (lasagne style). Repeat layering with remaining eggplant, meat, sauce and provolone.

Spread mozzarella over the top of the casserole, cover with foil and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until done, taking foil off last 5-10 minutes to brown.

Serves 6. 5.8 effective grams of carbs per serving.

[tickletussler]

Ana, it looks like an Atkins-version of the greek dish moussaka

And by the looks of it, I reckon your dish IS induction-friendly - all the ingredients except the lo-carb spaghetti sauce are on the induction list? But I've made a similar dish without the spaghetti sauce - I just used fresh tomatoes so I didn't have to worry too much about the sugars in the sauce