Transcript: Eggplant Parmesan

Budget Health Nut
Episode: “Eggplant Parmesan”

Joe Dias: Hi and welcome to budget Health Nut, I am your host Joe Dias the focus of our program is preparing meals for you under twenty five dollars, while serving anywhere between two to eight people, depending on our dish. Now in other words I am bringing you five star flavors on a two star budget.
Now here at Budget Health Nut we like to offer smart choices for some tasty cooking while also reducing calories compared to eating out a restaurants all the time. Now keep in mind moderation is the key here. And keep your mind focused on portion sizes. Now today’s dish is going to be egg plant parmesan. And that is a nice hearty vegetarian dish, with a side salad and some crisp garlic bread. So come join me in the kitchen, I will se you there and whip it u in a minute.
The good thing about this is it soaks in all the flavors that’s around it whether in a pot or even a wok. Now this dish we are going to do the eggplant parm. SO I am going to cut it up, slice it and then we are going to go ahead and bread it. So here I have my parsley. And what I recommend you doing is try to go fresh herbs as much as possible.
Now if you have dried ones I am not going to hold it against you. But the fresh really releases a lot of flavor as much as possible. Be it with rosemary, or thyme or even just regular parsley. Cilantro too, try and get fresh every time, it’s just as cheap but the only problem is they don’t last as long as the dry. So I recommend going fresh and using it the same day. Here we go.
What you are going to do is cut it up in the middle, and you’re going to bunch it up in your hands and roll it almost. Then you’re going to come across real carefully, your going to keep your fingers flat up against it so that way if you do come down your only getting you knuckle and you’re not using your blade. Alright let’s cut it up. Real fine, I am going to do it slow for you here see I even kicked my finger there but no blood because my fingers not sticking out. So I am not going to cut any fingernail off or anything. You don’t want fingernails in your sauce got me?
What you are going to do is take your garlic, and it has your root base here ok. And you’re going to chop it down like that. Get rid of your root base and that will make all the cloves fall apart. Remove the skin, and it should come off pretty easily, leave at least the first layer. Now there like double or triple layered sometime son the garlic because it is a bulb. You hear that crunch? Make sure it crunches first and that means that will pop right out of its skin,. Very easy and it will really just be loose on the garlic clove, so boom, no stick.
Come across just like you did with the parsley. Ok and depending on how fine you want it, is how many times you go across it again. What I am going to do is do a fine chop. And to save my fingers what I am going to do is put them on top of the blade and just roll it. Rock my knife back and forth.
What you are going to do with the onion is the exact opposite what you would do with the garlic. You are going to cut off the head right at the top there. Leave the root base on, alright because other wise when you cut down the onion all of its going to fall apart because their layered. Cut right with the tip of your knife.
Alright I have peeled up and sliced my eggplant into about ¼” slices, let me set this down here right quick. So let’s start the sauce real quick and get that olive oil fired up ok. Let me go ahead and pour that in there. Turn this on, again it only takes about two minutes to heat up and once you start to see it really kind of come together in the middle it’s really starting to go.
While that’s happening your going to take a look at your onion, your garlic and some of your nice fresh herbs like oregano and maybe a bit of rosemary if you want. But oregano is kind of your standard. And that actually in the store they sell an all spice for Italian seasoning, so you might want to check that out too. And I am not going to yell at you don’t worry about it.
So were going ahead and add my onion put that in there and it starts to sizzle up, and the garlic of course. Alright what we are going to do after this is its looking translucent. It’s coming together and just adds our crushed tomatoes. We are going to add that in and we are going to stir it around. Ok there it goes.
And then we are going to add in the spices. We go to your standards, garlic powder, onion powder, and of course like I mentioned before the Italian seasonings. What I am going to do is crack a couple of eggs. Get those in a bowl. And I also have my all spice in my flower dredge. What we are going to do is do a production line. We have my ¼ inch eggplants, spoon put in my egg, boom. And go into the flour drench and right in to the hot oil. Ok and then we are going to layer it just like lasagna.
So it’s really an easy dish I don’t know why ore people don’t get it and for nine ten dollars at a restraint why not spend 4 dollars on two eggplants and feed a ton of people. Get them all going in there It can do in this pan about three or four a piece depending on what section of the eggplant you throw in there.
And aright let’s get those up, let’s flip it. We will flip them over. Now this is a little bit of a longer process a larger process because you are going to have to do all of these sautéed and get the outsides both crisp and brown. And then you’re going to layer the min your baking dish. Now magic number 350, 375 have your oven preheated so that way you don’t have to wait around for it ok.
Now what happens with the eggplant is after you sauté it, it will get crispy on the outside, your going to put a little bit of your sauce on the bottom of the baking pan, put a piece of eggplant. If you want to really go a little crazy. I am not going to do it with this dish, is you can go, sauce, eggplant, cheese, sauce, eggplant, cheese. I am just going to do the top layer on cheese. And again just to keep me clear of trouble, alright.
So here we go, I can’t wait to eat let’s plate it up. And here we go, we have plated up the awesome eggplant parmesan. A very hearty dish I really worked hard on this one. And again I want to welcome Ashley Colpaart.
Ashley Colpaart: Thanks for having me again.
Joe Dias: Sure no problem, always a pleasure to have you at the table.
Ashley Colpaart: Always a pleasure to eat your food Joe.
Joe Dias: Well I appreciate that you’re making my head swell. Beyond that what do you think of the eggplant, how does it do for us?
Ashley Colpaart: Eggplant, well I love Italian food. And it’s really a good choice to choose a vegetarian option when going with Italian food. Because there is already cheese involved, and cheese is going to contribute to calories and saturated fat. So if you choose a vegetarian option you’re getting away from saturated fat that would be found in your meat, sausage or beef.
Joe Dias: Or veal or chicken or something likes that too.
Ashley Colpaart: Exactly, stuff that you see in Italian restraints. And so we are actually doing really well, on calories because of that. Of course I always love the salad with the balsamic vinaigrette.
Joe Dias: I knew you would.
Ashley Colpaart: I always do, and red peer I there. I love that you added the red pepper. Its easy to add just any kind of vegetables but I really like the red pepper because there high in vitamin c and the color look’s great as well
Joe Dias: Well thank you very much.
Ashley Colpaart: Another thing I love, the whole grain bread.
Joe Dias: I did it just for you.
Ashley Colpaart: Yeah, I mean the garlic toast. You did garlic toast on whole grain bread, its hearty and it taste great. So it’s better than the white breads the white bread is going to cause an increase in blood glucose.
Joe Dias: Ok, on the price side I got to tell you eggplant parmesan is a really cheap dish. Each eggplant was only about a $1.67, between $1.50 and $2.00 a piece. At a diner you usually, at a restaurant either mom and pop or even the commercial side you are looking at between maybe ten or twelve bucks, especially with the old wine, alright. So I saved so much money I was able to buy a whole bottle of wine for us, again either as a date or for yourself.
If you want to cook this it is great for the day after too. Italian really keeps. So let’s give it a try and see what you think. See melts in your mouth doesn’t it?
Ashley Colpaart: It’s delicious.
Joe Dias: Well that’s about it for now. Again join us for the next time. We will always surprise you. I love eggplant you can try it in your kitchen too, come on back. See you later.