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Eggplant as Bread {Amy: Parker Haus Roles}

Amy is also known as Mrs. Pretzel on Weddingbee. She’s currently navigating newlywed life at Parker Haus Roles where she blogs a mash-up of home renovation, cooking, knitting, and life in the Seattle ‘burbs. She is a self-proclaimed beer geek, Zelda addict, and Star Wars purest. When nobody is looking she talks like a Muppet and dances like a maniac- much to her husband’s delight.

 

Hiya, Amy here from Parker Haus Roles. I’m so excited to be posting on Ruffles and Truffles today.

 

While I love R&T’s outfit posts (seriously, can we go shopping together sometime?) my absolute favorites are food posts.  I think we *might* be food twins and I am usually drooling over a photo of an entree or a recipe that she has posted.  One of the key things that I have noticed in both the food featured on R&T and the food that we enjoy at Parker Haus is fresh veggies. While I am not vegetarian, I am certainly vegetarian friendly and my husband Matt and I frequently have meals sans meat.  Our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) provides us with an abundance and an array of vegetables each week. The adventure of finding recipes for our weekly food box is one that I look forward to every summer.

 

A couple weeks ago my husband cooked me a mozzarella sandwich with eggplant instead of bread. Mind=Blown. First of all, yummm cheese! But second, Eggplant… instead of bread?  You’re kidding right?  He wasn’t and it was amazing.

 

Since then I have been begging him to make more eggplant bread sandwiches and last week we got a pair of eggplants in our CSA box.  Since we had more eggplant than we needed for the sandwiches, we decided to try out an additional eggplant sandwich.

 

 

First up, we made the original “mind blown by eggplant as bread” recipe: Grilled Eggplant and Mozzarella Sandwich from Bon Appétit July 2000. We omitted the salad because, well, I forgot to pick up the salad ingredients at the store. *sadface*  A tip, don’t forget the salad- it’s definitely missing something without it.  The ingredients are simple: olive oil, eggplant, and mozzarella- I added balsamic vinegar to ours but it didn’t really add much to the sandwich and can be omitted.

 

 

We also made an Eggplant and Smoked-Gouda Open-Faced Grilled Sandwich from Gourmet May 2006.  This one uses a slice of bread, but is topped with a an eggplant slice so I like to think it’s not an open-faced sandwich- just a sandwich that uses eggplant as bread on the top half. *grin*  The ingredients are also simple: vinegar, olive oil, eggplant, bread, tomato parsley, and smoked gouda. ummm cheese.

 

 

The key to using eggplant as bread is to have fresh firm eggplant, cut it into thick (3/4-1 inch thick) rounds, lightly brush with olive oil and grill.  You can use an outdoor grill or a grill pan/griddle on the stove like we did. I found 3-4 minutes per side is just about perfect.  You don’t to cook the eggplant to the point that it loses firmness because then it becomes the equivalent of soggy bread. Eww.

 

 

The Mozzarella sandwich (when prepared with the salad) is the healthier of the two with just 202 calories and 14 grams of fatThe Smoked-Gouda sandwich comes in a little heavier but still under 600 calories.

 

And there you have it- less carbs, more veggies, yummy sandwiches.

Have you used eggplant as bread?  What are your favorite bread alternatives?

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