Recipe(tried): Last night's Eggplant Parmesan

Its been quite sometime since I have last posted on this board. Although I have been a fly on the wall many times over the past year.

In any case... these past few days I have been craving eggplant. But what to make with eggplant aside from Capanota... or sauteed with pasta or simply grilled. All of which are delicious! In anycase I decided to make eggplant parmesan. Something I haven't made in almost 8 years!!

My cooking style has changed dramatically over the past few years..and I really didn't realize how subtly the changes have happened. Not to mention that I am older now and have the resources to now afford the best cookware... that I may add --- does make a difference when working on a dish!!!!

I love eggplant parmesan, but realized that I have not made it in a very long time...since my previous experiences have been not too good. Meaning that my cookware 10 years ago was simply the bare basics that a young adult could afford while paying back the government on loans from college... not to mention the cost of living in NYC.

In anycase... eggplant parmesan was ALWAYS a LABOR of love...since I love CRISPY outer coated bread crumbs... and a tender eggplant slice inside. Most peoples (and probably traditional italian) usually end up very soggy...and sauced up.I really prefer the textures of both a nice toothsome CRUNCH... with a gooey cheese mixture sandwiched between two equally crunchy yet tender on the inside... eggplant slices...

Then once well prepared... baked (without a cover)to further the crunchiness...then right before serving an angle of simply made marinara sauce just over a 1/4 of the eggplant slice sandwiched with cheeses.

It previously had been a labor of love since I never had a sautee pan large enough to cook but 2 slices at a time... and so became a non stop cooking ordeal. I now have a 13 inch all-clad sautee pan that was able to easily panfry 4 large eggplant disks... and cut the cooking time in almost half.

When people say that cooking is so difficult I wonder if they would feel this way if they were to just once have all of the right equipment available to them. It really does make a difference...and can change what used to be such a long difficult process into something of fun and pleasure.

We had the eggplant parmesan with a simple salad and that I dressed with my homemade Black olive and Parmesean Vinagrette.

Afterwards we had storebought Lemon Sorbet.