Baked Eggplant Appetizer

You might not realize this because I plan to flood this blog with recipes over the next few days, but: Man, there's hardly anything here! Fear not; I plan on posting quite regularly.

Onto the eggplant! I'm not sure how or when it was I realized that I loved eating it, but eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables and this is a nice (if "junk food") way of making it. Super easy! I got it from a Mr. Food cookbook.

Ingredients

1 eggplant, cut into 1/4" thick slices

1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

vegetable oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 375F.

Combine the breadcrumbs and parmesan in a small bowl.

Dip the eggplant slices in the oil, then coat both sides with the breadcrumb/cheese mixture. Place on baking sheet (see tip below) and bake 15 minutes. Turn eggplant slices and bake an additional 15 minutes or until slices are brown.

Baking Sheets

The worst part of cooking: Doing the dishes afterward! Whenever possible, I like to use sheets of aluminum foil on baking sheets for super easy cleanup. When making the eggplant slices, or certain frozen appetizers, I not only use foil but then spray the foil lightly with cooking spray. This makes sure that more cheese gets in your mouth instead of stuck to the foil!

Peach Tart, and: Peeling Peaches!

Some time back, I made an apple tart that was very good but also... explosive. Not really thinking about the purpose of why I was doing it, I added baking powder and baking soda to a recipe that didn't really need to rise. Thus, there was overflow of yum stickiness into the bottom of the oven that left it smelling like burnt marshmallows for weeks - not fun.

Anyway, having learned from my mistake, I went ahead and made a non-explosive but still delicious peach tart this evening. Here's the recipe, and a tip afterwards on a seriously easy way to peel peaches (I didn't believe it would work either, until I did it!)

Ingredients

1 refrigerated 9" pie crust

fresh ripe peaches, peeled and cut into small chunks (2-3 large peaches, or 4-5 small peaches)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
few dashes pumpkin pie spice (or mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice)
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped or finely ground
2 graham crackers, crushed/finely ground
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 stick of butter, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Remove pie crust from fridge and set aside until soft enough to unroll. When ready, press it into the bottom of a pie pan or quiche dish.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. When thoroughly combined, stir in the milk until it resembles melted caramel. Stir in the peaches. Pour the peaches and "sauce" into the ready pie crust.

In a medium bowl, combine the walnuts, crushed graham crackers, sugar, and cinnamon. Stir in melted butter until the entire mixture is moist. Sprinkle on top of the tart.

Bake for 35-45 minutes; tart will be ready when the fruit is "bubbling" and the crust is golden brown.

Peeling Peaches

This was so surpisingly easy to do, but you'll need to have your supplies ready:

- Deep pot or saucepan that can hold water to cover the entire peach
- Tongs that you can grab the peaches with, or a long handled spoon
- Deep bowl of ice water

Fill the pot up with water and heat until it is rapidly boiling. Carefully place one peach in the pot and let sit for 30-60 seconds. Remove the peach from the boiling water, and immediately put into the ice water. Let the peach get cool enough to handle (probably only 10-15 seconds), remove from the water, and peel off the skin with your fingers.

Repeat the process for more peaches as necessary; if you're doing several, keep some extra ice on hand to add to the bowl. If the peel is not easily removeable (sp?), try submerging in boiling water again, and cold water again.