Eggplant Bake

This is something I made this weekend and posted the picture in my flickr photos, not really sure I'd blog about it. But I got a request for how to make it and decided today would be a good day to post it, being as it's Tuesday and Sweetnicks is having her weekly ARF roundup, and because this recipe has lots of tomatoes and garlic which are thought to have cancer fighting components.

The recipe I started with for this came from the cookbook "Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals" which I got from the library last week, desperately in need of inspiration for my cooking. The first thing I did was to omit the 1/2lb(!) of mozzarella completely, and not substitute anything for it since I don't know much about vegan cheese, besides I had none on hand. The next thing I changed was to use significantly less oil, I forget how much the recipe called for (I want to say 1/3-1/2C) but it sounded like a lot. I instead used the pancake method to cook the eggplant, which I figure used about 2Tb oil, tops. Now that I think about it, if you have the time, you could probably dredge the eggplant in the flour and then put it in the oven and bake it while the sauce is cooking, turning once and making sure it browns, instead of using the oil... hmm, may have to try that myself.

Either way, it's very tasty the way it's written below !

Eggplant Bake

1 28oz can diced tomatoes, drained
2Tb tomato paste
1C diced onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1/2Tb dried basil
1/2Tb dried oregano
1/2Tb dried thyme

1/2 large eggplant, sliced into 1/4in strips
flour
olive oil

-Combine tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and thyme in a large saucepan. Stir well and bring to a simmer, cover and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes.

-While sauce is cooking, dredge the eggplant slices in flour and lightly saute them in olive oil until lightly browned on both sides (I used very little oil for this step, I just kept spritzing the pan after each slice like I would for pancakes)

-Preheat oven to 350.

-Pour a small amount of the sauce into the bottom of a 1 1/2qt baking dish. Cover sauce with a layer of eggplant slices. Repeat until all of the eggplant and sauce is used up, making sure to finish with a layer of sauce. Cover baking dish with foil tightly, bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 15 more minutes.