Someone's NOT in the kitchen with Ali (pssst, and it's Courtney): Eggplant Lasagna

Tonight we need something with substance. Something that, if you eat enough, you might have to unbutton your pants, put your feet up, and watch some of that cable tv that you're stealing. No, it's not Thanksgiving dinner, but it is full of starchiness. And golden fried discs of eggplant.

I know! You can't contain your glee. Lasagna is so good. Once, I was unable to eat lasagna. It all happened when Ali and I went to Paris. Our flight over was served by Delta (the way back was Air France, a VAST improvement), on which the in-flight meal was lasagna. It tasted like ENGINE FUEL. So, for about a year....no lasagna without the delightful undertones (though imagined) of gasoline tantalizing my tastebuds. Anyway here's our recipe we'll be working from, with of course some customized additions:

1 med. eggplant cut into very thin slices

1 tbsp. veg. oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 lb. mushrooms sliced (I think we had about 6-8 shroomers)

9 lasagna noodles

1 (15 1/2 oz.) jar spaghetti sauce

8 oz. part skim ricotta cheese

4 oz. shredded part skim Mozzarella cheese

3 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, or any blend like Parmesan/Reggiano/Asiago if you're feeling funky.

1-2 eggs

Italian breadcrumbs

So, ok. The above we'll call my rule of thumb. Melissa and I were cooking up this wonder, and we like fresh Mozzarella balls, which don't particularly shred with a shredder nicely. Use a knife to chop it into small pieces. Also add (for fun):

A container of marscapone (you can decide how much to use...we pretty much used it all.)

Fresh basil leaves, pull off stems and tear really big leaves into halves

A container of Grape tomatoes, chopped in halves

After chopping all your produce, throw on a large pot of water to boil for your pasta noodles. Then start on the eggplant. Make sure you get your pan hot to brown the eggplant and throw some oil on there. I used spray canola oil but added a little olive oil during the cooking process since they started to look a little dry. This worked nicely. Crack an egg into one dish and pour some bread crumbs in another. Then go to town with your little assembly line. Dip a slice of eggplant in the egg, then in the crumbs (press a little and get them on there...using a fork keeps your hands pretty clean), then into the fryer they go! It should be at about medium heat, as you don't want to wait around all night for them to cook, but you certainly don't want them to burn. A good idea is to use more than one pan to speed up the process since sliced eggplant takes up quite a bit of room. I like to sprinkle sea salt, black pepper and garlic powder over my slices. While you're browning these beauties, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. If you're lucky you can do all this while a friend chops the veggies, but if you're going it alone I would chop everything first.

Now you have sliced onions and mushies to cook. Make sure you have like 8,000 burners on your oven and about 12 frying pans to cook all this. No really. You may need to cook one batch of eggplant first and then switch to just using one pan for them, one for your onions, and one to keep that water boiling. Saute up the onions for a bit with some olive oil, then add the mushrooms. Mushrooms don't need to go on too long...they should get a little brown and moist looking, and the onions should look translucent. Also add some salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

During all of this your water has most definitely come to a boil. Place in your lasagna noodles. They may stick out a little but that's okay. Once they start to soften up you'll be able to push them all the way into the water. Follow the instructions on the box, but they should need around ten minutes or so. As your eggplant is finishing up, take out the slices and lay them on a plate with a paper towel to soak up some of the oil from cooking them. When your pasta is done cooking you'll now be ready to assemble your lasagna apparatus.

Arrange your layers in a 11 x 7 baking dish in this order: noodles, ricotta and marscapone dollops (then smoosh around a little), mushroom mixture, Mozzarella cheese, eggplant slices, basil, sauce, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. When you get to the second round of noodles make sure to alternate the placement. You'll have to trim them so they fit in your dish. When you get it all in sprinkle some extra Parm on top..feel free to sprinkle a little dried oregano. Then toss this baby in the oven for around 30-40 minutes.

30-40 minutes!? Now what? Your male sous chef, George, is in San Francisco, and something tells you Melissa would not be really into your striptease efforts. So press play on the movie you intend to watch during dinner (in our case, City of God, which though violent is a FANTASTIC movie).

Around 35 minutes for us we took out the lasagna. It should look a little browned on top- I'm not so sure ours did but we were really hungry. And it looked amazing! Make sure you let it sit around 10 mins to cool off a little and solidify, though if your hungry little fingers can't help but ravish this culinary beauty with a knife....that's okay. We understand these things here. Dig in!

PS. Sorry my pics are always a bit dark. The lighting in my apt. during the evening kinda sucks. It's an old building and I'm evidently still trying to get George's flash to work in collaboration with me.