All that Eggplant Parmesan

PattyLeave a comment

Oh my, oh my!

Let’s take a trip to Italy now, shall we? The renaissance, the boot shaped country divided by the Alps, the great Roman culture, the pasta,  the fashion, the lights; how could one not want to venture to the magical land where Lizzie McGuire sang “This is where dreeaaaaams are made of”.

To be quite blunt, Italians are the real OG’s and one could never go wrong with Italian foods and the endless pasta-abilities. HA. Get it!?

Well anyways folks, let’s be real. Today’s topic is definitely representative of me and although I can brag about Italy’s culture (I’ll save that for your World History professor, though, thank me later), I’m gonna brag about some of the greatest facts that drew me to focus in on the Italian culture. For me, as being raised as a Hapa – half Italian/Irish and half Mexican, I focused in primarily on my Mexican culture as my mother was the one primarily cooking up the refried beans and endless quesadillas. However, I want to focus in on a dish that takes me back to one week in New York filled with the Empire State building, tire swings, cousin love, and endless food.

One dish, that was my father’s favorite growing up and was my favorite that my grandmother somehow perfected was Eggplant Parmesan. Something about the fried Eggplant, the OG marinara sauce, all the cheesy pleaseyyyy, and sitting around the table with a grandmother tinier than I am killing the game with her endless glasses of wine and food gave me the ideal that the Italian culture is savvy on food, family, and well being. Nothing quite says happiness like family and a good meal.

And that’s what the Italian culture is, really.  But not only do the fond memories of my past draw me to the Italian culture, but the Italian’s traditional health beliefs and practices that are identical to my own personal beliefs that drew me to major in Nutrition.

If you follow me in my other blog posts (HA JOKES ON YOU THIS IS MY FIRST BLOG POST BUT ANYWAYS KEEEEEEP REAAAADING), I firmly believe that nature is the way to go with health and by maintaining a whole foods diet, by surrounding yourself with love and happiness, and by maintaining a healthy exercise routine, one can have vital health as our mental state relates most directly as to how our body works; I mean, it’s scientifically proven with how our neurons and circuits in our brain release according to our experiences in life.

And as stated in the wonderful textbook, Food & Culture, the Italian traditional health beliefs and practices follow that same moral belief; they focus in directly that fresh air is directly connected to the quality of our life, that illness is due to contamination or heredity spin offs, if cravings are not met in pregnancies — that leads to illness, and illness can as well be caused by drafts, suppression of emotions, or supernatural causes. Although I agree with most of the beliefs (not the supernatural stuff man, that stuff is scary), I do believe it is important and our mental state reflects our physical state; I mean, I’ve experienced it hands on as I do suffer with anxiety and even had such a gnarly anxiety attack that I ended up in Urgent Care… yeah. bad times, bad times.

So, therefore, in the stress of finals week, I wanted to breakaway and force myself to channel into my inner grandmother and do the challenging recipe that I know I will not master easily as well, I am not my grandmother. I chose this recipe as it is a comfort food, yet holds a healthy twist and the Italian culture reminds me for as to why I am working so hard as I am in school — to help others in their mission for health, happiness, and finding their true calling and enjoying the learning process along the way.

AND

HERE

WE

GO!

Okay, so let’s start with our list:

To make this easy, go to Trader Joe’s and buy the following, healthy ingredients:

  • 2 Eggplants
  • 3 Eggs (Or a pack of eggs, hey extra protein is extra yummy)
  • 1 Package of Organic Bread Crumbs
  • Lots of endless Marinara Sauce (well no, because that’s expensive but like buy the can of Low Fat Tuscano Marinara sauce or two, or you can do what I did and use that can, along with half of the Organic Trader Joe’s Spaghetti Sauce with Mushrooms) 
  • Sun Dried Tomatoes
  • Fresh Basil
  • Peppahhhh Seasoning
  • Oregano Seasoning
  • Seasoned Salt (I know weird, but hey, it’s pretty delicious okayyy)
  • 1 16 ounce package of Mozzarella cheeeseeeeee all shredded up ready to eat
  • and finally, the star of it all: one 12 ounce package of parmesan cheese all shredded up ready to eat.

And alright folks, here we go. Another challenge I presented myself was as to how I wanted to keep it traditional, but as well, try my best to make it accommodating to college students to make as easy to home, and shout out to AllRecipes for this suggestion and for being my base guide through this all and here is how you do it, folks.

  1. Preheat that oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Slice up those Eggplants; keep the skin on them or not, it doesn’t matter. I personally keep the skin on, but hey, that’s just me.
  3. After that chop chop, in two bowls side by side, have the three eggs beaten and the bread crumbs all ready to rumble and the fun, tedious part is about to begin.
  4. Dip that eggplant slice in the gooey egg batter.
  5. AND DIPPITY CHIP IT INTO THE BREAD CRUMBLES! Make sure it’s all covered up real good in the bread crumbs.
  6. Set up that cookie sheet with tin foil and place your eggplant slices on the tin foil.
  7. After filling up the cookie sheet and keeping steps 4-6 going in action, place that cookie sheet into the oven to let our lil slices of heaven bake! Let it sit in the oven for 10 minutes and then, flip to the other side!
  8. Flip your eggplant slices and again, wait 10 more minutes for our little yummy babies to bake.
  9.  While waiting, you can open up that jar of yum — aka, the Lowfat Tuscano Marinara Sauce — and slather your pan with a nice, thick layer of tomato happiness.
  10. After the tomato sauce base, it is optional, but because I like to keep it nice and spicey in my life, I add in all the flavor flavzzz. Time to add in chopped fresh basil, oregano, seasoned salt, pepper, and some sundried tomato…Yeah, it’s kind of weird, but so am I and I thought the flavors would work… oh whale.
  11. And so, anyways, now the fun part begins. Take the eggplant slices out and start layering up!
  12. After adding the eggplant slices nice and neatly, add another layer of sauce and put some of the cheese, please!
  13. First add in the mozzarella cheese, then a nice, thick layer of parmesan. I mean, it’s called Eggplant Parmesan for a reason.
  14. Keep on layering. Depending on how big or small your pan is, that’s how many layers you should do. The original recipe I found that I used as my base for the recipe advised for only two beaten eggs and three eggplants, but I found two eggplants more than sufficient and required three eggs.
  15. And for the final layer, make it look nice and pretty. If it’s not Instagram worthy, did you even make food?
  16. And now, here comes the funnest part.. the waiting game, which is a good time for cleaning up the mess. Wait 25-30 minutes, or until nice and golden brown, or follow what I did and see it be nice and ooey gooey cheesey pleasey.
  17. And TADAAAHHH. It is done, my friends!

 

And now, the results. The part we all have been waiting for.

It was a failure, let’s be real. Don’t used canned sauce, and don’t just get plain bread crumbs, and also, it’s essential to really slice those eggplant slices nice and thin.

I tried to salvage it with adding more cheese and just stuffing it in my face, but man, it didn’t taste anywhere near close to my grandmother’s cooking. To be quite blunt, I’m not surprised as this was entirely my fault. I made this a challenge for myself from the beginning because I wanted to attempt to make a healthier twist on a traditional dish and follow the AllRecipe’s guide as it seemed realistic for a college student like myself to make, but man, I’m saving this dish for special events because this is one of those dishes where you have to definitely just bulk up for by frying up the eggplant slices and making homemade Marinara sauce.

It was quite the experience and I’m blessed to have tried this new twist on a traditional take during my final weeks season, but man, it sucked and I’m broke and stuck with this dish. Definitely calling up the family from back in New York next time.. but hey, it was great trying something new! Cheers to the New Year coming up and hey, good luck to you on all your finals! You guys got it, fam. 🙂