Cooking with TechyDad: Eggplant Italian

Finding good eggplants here is a rare occurance. Unfortunately, most eggplants I look at are bruised and/or squishy. So when I find good eggplants, I snatch them up. Last week, I found a pair of good looking eggplants so I bought them and tossed them into my fridge. Luckily, I had a recipe that I wanted to try them with.

I took the eggplants, peeled and sliced them and soaked them in salt water for 5 minutes to help remove the bitterness. Next, I combined some cottege cheese, eggbeaters, salt a pepper in one bowl and tomato sauce, basil and oregano in another. Then, in a non-stick cooking sprayed crockpot, I layered the eggplant, cottege cheese and sauce. Four hours on high later, it was dinner time.

B loved it. She declared it “amazing” and had seconds. In fact, she loved it so much, that my poor side dish (pasta with a tomato sauce, zucchini, broccoli and mushrooms) was pronounced “meh.” It wasn’t that she didn’t like the pasta, she did. It was that it just didn’t hold up in comparison to the eggplant.

Here are some photos of the results:

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And, of course, here is the all-important recipe:

Eggplant Italian
Book: Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly – Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good
Recipe by: Melanie Thrower
Makes 6-8 servings
(Ideal slow-cooker size: 4 or 5 quart; and oval cooker works best)
  • 2 eggplants
  • 1/4 cup eggbeaters
  • 24 oz fat-free cottage cheese
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • black pepper to taste
  • 14 oz can tomato sauce
  • 2-4 Tbsp Italian seasoning, according to your taste preference (I used 1Tbsp dried Oregano and 1Tbsp dried Basil)
  1. Peel eggplants and cut in 1/2″ thick slices. Soak in salt-water for about 5 minutes to remove bitterness. Drain well.
  2. Spray slow-cooker with fat-free cooking spray.
  3. Mix eggbeaters, cottage cheese, salt, and pepper together in bowl.
  4. Mix tomato sauce and Italian seasoning together in another bowl.
  5. Spoon a thin layer of tomato sauce into the bottom of slow cooker. Top with about one-third of the eggplant slices, and then one-third of the egg/cheese mixture, and finally one-third of the remaining tomato sauce mixture.
  6. Repeat those layers twice, ending with seasoned tomato sauce.
  7. Cover. Cook on high 4 hours. Allow to rest 15 minutes before serving.

Per Serving: 120 calories (10 calories from fat), 1g total fat (0g saturated, 0gtrans), 30mg cholesterol, 940mg sodium, 17g total carbohydrate (4g fiber, 11g sugar), 11g protein, 15% DV vitamin A, 4% DV vitamin C, 8% DV calcium, 4% DV iron.

Here’s wishing you good cooking!

Chef TechyDad

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