Eggplant Lasagna

Holy CRAP was this good! Thanks to Mouseroo for the link to her post on a dish. I also got from someone (damned if I can remember who right now, sorry) for a core version of the same dish.

From these two dishes I decided to create a lasagna. I had some ground beef in the fridge that needed to be used today.

I gotta tell ya... I was worried. I have only had eggplant in a Greek dish (moussaka?) and it was... well... disgusting (sorry to Greek's everywhere). Truly a terrible dish. And I've tried it more than once. You never know if it's because of the dish or the maker of the dish. It's the dish. Plech.

So needless to say, that impulse to buy an eggplant left me in a tizzy when I got it home. Logan has had it in ratatoulie (sp?) in foods class, so he informed me all about "sweating" it with salt. Eep, scary! Lucky he said it, because I didn't know.

Here's my recipe:

1 large eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch wide circles

1 container of Blue Menu Primavera Sauce (found in the deli section of SuperStore)

3/4 pound of ground lean beef

3/4 onion

1 T minced garlic

4 oz light mozza, grated

Salt the CRAP out of the eggplant slices and let sit for ten minutes then rinse. While slices are sitting, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. Rinse. Put back into the pan and add the container of Primavera and mix.

Lay the slices out on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with whatever spices you like (I used oregano and basil). Broil until brown, flip and do other side. I spritzed them with my Misto. Once browned on both sides, remove from oven and turn heat to 375.

In a corningware dish (or whatever holds about four great big pieces of lasagna, so square, vs rectangle) layer meat/sauce, eggplant slices, meat/sauce, eggplant slices, meat/sauce, cheese.

Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and broil, watching carefully, until cheese is nicely brown/orange. Remove from oven and let sit for ten minutes. Slice and serve!

Calories: 370

Woot! Thanks for all the input!!