Dehydrating Eggplant

The eggplant has ripened with abundance. After enjoying it piece by piece for dinners, we harvested most of it. It seems a little later this year, but that was the way the summer weather worked.

Each eggplant weighed a little over a pound and there was about 20 pounds in this basket. Eggplant is always best used as quickly as possible after picking.

It is great preserved in the dehydrator. Most of the eggplant harvest yesterday was dehydrated. There will be plenty of eggplant for soups and casseroles this winter and it stores so well. These were cut in half and then in quarters and sliced about 1/4 inch thick. They dried in about 8 hours.

Of course there was plenty of left over eggplant for dinner and with some fresh tomatoes we had the makings of Eggplant Parmesan for dinner.

Eggplant!

Also known as Aubergine, the eggplant grows abundantly in our garden. We planted both the "Black Bell" or purple globe eggplant and the Japanese eggplant sometimes called nasu. Both varieties flourished in the garden this year and the heaviest picking will be in the next few days.


I try to leave the eggplant on the bush until I can use it immediately. By that I mean within a few hours. The quality and the flavor can't be matched. Tonight we had Eggplant Parmesan O'Brien style!


First I picked one of each variety of eggplant, along with some especially ripe tomatoes, a small zucchini, and green onions. I added to the vegetables some garlic, bread crumbs, olive oil, salt and cheese.



After washing the vegies, the slicing and chopping and layering began. Eggplant, dipped in bread crumbs, layers into a small casserole dish with olive oil in the bottom. Once the eggplant had all been breaded, an extra drizzle of olive oil over the top finished it off. Then the sliced zucchini was tucked around the edges and across the top of the eggplant along with addition of freshly chopped garlic.


Next the super ripe, and wonderfully sweet tomatoes were chopped and piled on top of everything already layered in the casserole dish. At this point a dash of salt was also added.


Here it is ready for the oven. The Eggplant Parmesan was baked or roasted at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes. The edges of the tomatoes were turning brown and it smelled good enough to eat! At this point, add a mixture of grated mozzarella cheese and grated Parmesan cheese. I put about 3/4 of a cup of cheese over the top of the bubbling hot casserole. Then popped it back into the oven for about 10 more minutes.


You can see the cheese has melted thoroughly and the edges are browned. Here is a closer look! Be sure to use the scratch and sniff button!


There were extra green onion slices so they were scattered across the top of the Eggplant Parmesan and it was ready to serve. This was a big enough casserole for dinner for two and leftovers for lunch.


Eggplant Parmesan O'Brien Style served with garden green beans, mmm-mmmm!