This is similar to the Eggplant Parmesan recipe, but it is distinct in some important ways. Most significantly, this dish has farmer's cheese, which if you use the spicy tomato sauce, you will need to help balance out the flavors, trust me. This recipe also includes mushrooms and leaves out the Kalamata olives and capers that are central to the flavor of the Parm. This dish pairs well with a garden salad.
Ingredients: 3 medium eggplants 4 large shallots 8 cloves garlic 5 portobello mushrooms 2 cups spinach 25 oz. tomato sauce (I used Mezzetta: some tomato and basil and some spicy marinara, but any flavor(s) or other SCD legal brands, or homemade is fine as well!) 1 lb. farmer's cheese (I use Friendship) 1/2 cup aged provolone 1/2 cup Mediteranean herb parmesan (either or both of these 2 cheeses may be substituted with similar hard, aged cheeses, whatever you have on hand or prefer) For roasting: salt pepper oregano olive oil Steps: 1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 2) Slice the eggplants into circles. The thickness can vary, depending upon how firm you want it to turn out, but try to keep it consistent so that they cook evenly. Also, you don't want them to be too thin, because then they will just stick to the sheet pan and you don't want them to be too thick either, because then they will not cook through all the way as quickly, or cut as easily when it is put all together and you want to slice it at the end. 3) Lay out eggplant slices on a sheet pan, one layer thick, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and dried oregano. 4) Roast the eggplant for 10 minutes, or until cooked through. 5) Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you have all the eggplant roasted. 6) In the meantime, slice the shallots and mushrooms, finely dice (or crush, if you prefer) the garlic, and sauté these in a pan with some olive oil, adding in the spinach when the rest of the ingredients are nearly done cooking. 7) Grate the aged provolone and Parmesan and in a medium-sized bowl, mix most of them together with the farmer's cheese until they are evenly combined. 8) Pour a thin layer of tomato sauce into a glass baking dish, just enough to cover the bottom. 9) Lay down a layer of eggplant slices, followed by a thin layer of the veggie mixture. (The shallots, spinach, mushrooms and garlic will not create a full layer. Sprinkle them onto the eggplant as if you were topping a pizza. This will likely use about a third of the mixture.) 10) Spoon in the cheese mixture. (This layer should be more solid, but again, you can think of it kind of like a pizza topping - it will not create a solid layer. You can squish down the cheese mixture with the spoon to help spread it out if you want. 11) Repeat steps 8-10 until you reach the top of the baking dish, or run out of ingredients. (I always end up with a little extra of the ingredients leftover, but that's fine because I then put them together to make delicious, flavor-filled bite-size amuse bouche.) Make sure that the top layer is eggplant. 12) Sprinkle on the rest of the aged provolone and Parmesan to create a nice top layer, 13) Pop the baking dish in the oven and bake until the cheese on the top is melted all the way and begins to brown, likely at least 40 minutes. 14) Take it out of the oven, let it cool a bit, and enjoy! Tip: To make for quicker preparation immediately before enjoying this meal, the eggplant can be roasted ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. The same is true of all the other components as well: They can be prepped ahead of time and refrigerated. You can even put the whole thing together ahead of time so all you have to do is heat it up the day of.
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