Eggplant in Italy

Everyone loves Italian food right?  Even those picky eaters (AKA little ones) will eat macaroni and cheese.  So Italian food plus fried food = AMAZING in this dish.  I was excited to try this Eggplant Parmesan because I really want to like eggplant.  It is really good for you (well maybe not fried) but it has a lot of fiber which the american diet lacks.  Of course I am sure they are talking about fresh eggplant but everyone has to start somewhere.  Eggplant has a lot of water so the first thing was to slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices (I think mine were a little larger) then sprinkle with salt and then let drain on a paper towel.  The salt pulls all of the water out of the eggplant (AKA osmosis) because the water inside of the eggplant will come out to even out the salt content on the outside. This is a good thing in this application because we want our "something fried" to be dry.  After sprinkling with salt I placed another paper towel and sheet pan on talk and weighed it down with a book for about 30 minutes.  After this I rinsed the excess salt of of them and dried them again.

Next is the dredging station.  The first is flour with salt and pepper, the second is eggs and a little water and third is panko bread crumbs and parmesan cheese.  I love panko bread crumbs.  If you haven't tried them they are nice alternative to standard bread crumbs.  You can even buy them seasoned just like bread crumbs in the asian food section.

The oil I used for this application was standard canola oil.  I heated it to 350 degrees in my cast iron skillet to about 1/2 inch.  (I also turned the oven on the 250 degrees in order to keep the fried ones warm)  Into the oil they go.  (I bet you can just hear the sizzle right?)

They took about 3-5 minutes on each side and then into the oven on a draining rack.

Meanwhile I just took 1 cup of pasta sauce and warmed it up along with some macaroni noodles.  (I was hoping that would entice my kiddos to eat it) After removing all of the fried eggplant out of the oven I increased the heat to 375 and started to build my yummy tower of fried amazingness.  First a little sauce, then eggplant, then provolone cheese and then repeat twice.  I placed it into a casserole dish and baked them for 10 minutes (until the cheese was bubbling)

Seriously I pretty much ate this out of the serving dish it was so good.  Not only did I eat about 5 eggplant pieces while frying but then had two "yummy italian stacks" with the noodles.  I have decided that the name for eggplant parmesan should be yummy italian stacks.  Don't you agree?  Here is the ironic part... as I am writing this I am thinking.... "shouldn't there have been parmesan cheese since the name is eggplant parmesan".  Guess what,  I apparently forgot to read all of the directions and never even put parmesan on it.  LOL  I can only imagine how it would have tasted.  Everything is better with cheese right?   Next up... we are going to the fair!  Oh my how my cholesterol is rising!!!

Goin' Southern

I have never had green tomatoes or fried green tomatoes and I have never been to the south. Apparently I have been missing out on a lot. I have also been informed that I have missed a great book and movie by not watching "Fried Green Tomatoes". I was excited to try this recipe.  1st of all,  I had to go to many stores to find "green" tomatoes.  I finally found them at Whole Foods!  By the way, if and when I when the lottery I will be doing all my shopping at this store.  I LOVE IT THERE!  I could spend hours in there just walking the rows of amazing and weird food.  These tomatoes were so pretty.

I thinly sliced them and laid them on the paper towel to dry.  It is always easier to get breading to stick better when the item in question is not wet.  Here are pretty slices. 

Here is my breading station.  On the left is flour and cornstarch with salt and pepper, the middle is eggs and the right is Ritz cracker crumbs.  (Nothing is bad if it has ritz in it right?) 

I got my cast iron skillet (my favorite pan) and heated the oil (I think I used peanut oil) to 350 degrees.  Ok so I don't have a thermometer and apparently I need to get one but I feel like the more I fry, the better I am getting at telling when the oil is hot enough.  I also use a drop of water and put it into the skillet.  If it pops, in my opinion it is ready.  Wonder the science behind that? I took each slice of tomato, put it into the flour, then the egg and then the ritz crumbs making sure to pat it down after every station in order to make the stuff stick. 

Immediately after the frying I placed them on the drying rack in order to let the excess oil drip off. 

OH MY GOSH!!!!  These are amazing.  After the oil I salted them.  They were crispy and the breading stayed on.  I ate able 20 of them.  Seriously!  It was even better when dipped in a little bit of ranch.  I served it with some chicken and apple sausage.  It was a little too much grease for this meal but lets be honest.  We are frying here right?  I had major heart burn after this one but would definitely make this again.  So should I read the book first or watch the movie?  Apparently I missed out on American culture.  Next up we are headed to Italy.