Eggplant Parmesan, the vegetarian solution.

I invited a few friends over for dinner one night during Rosh Hashanah.  And as I usually try to do, I asked if anyone had any allergies, cravings, or special requests as I started putting together a menu.

Kit said she was a vegetarian, so at first I tried thinking about what separate vegetable dishes I could make.  But then I wondered if there were some easy vegetarian dishes that everyone could enjoy together.  I don't know how I came up with this, but I decided to try my hand at eggplant parm from scratch.

Sweating out the eggplants' moisture

Eggplants are funky vegetables to work with.  I've never cooked eggplant before, so it felt funny skinning and slicing the spongy but firm things.  In the recipe it didn't say to do this, but in people's reviews they suggested sprinkling salt over the eggplant pieces and letting the eggplant pieces sweat out some of their moisture before cooking them.

Who knew eggplant parm was so time intensive?  I didn't!

Oh my goodness, I didn't realize how much time it took to dip and bread every single piece of eggplant.  Just for that, I don't think I'll be making eggplant parmesan again in the near future.

I think this was my favorite part - layering the sauce, eggplant and cheese!

It was a fun adventure, though, putting that dinner together.  I also made a simple spinach and garlic side dish, along with this recipe I found for roasted sweet potatoes and caramelized onions.  I love simple recipes that make delicious food!

The sweet potatoes and caramelized onions were a hit!

I really liked how the eggplant parmesan turned out.  On the up side, I had extra eggplant pieces so it was really easy to save them for making another batch of eggplant parm another day.  Unfortunately, the first day's process of making it took hours to put together that I don't think I can sacrifice unless it was for a really special occasion.

I'd definitely make the spinach and sweet potatoes again.  They were simple and quick to make.  I thought the sweet potatoes were pretty unique, too.

And it was a great night of food, friends, and good conversations around the table that I hope will happen again in the future.