Eggplant not-so Parmigiana

Cheesy goodness not your thing? Then no need to read on. Does anyone else find that eggplant parmigiana can kind of get mundane after a while? After constant personal look-overs on restaurant menus and at events, I had to address the situation. So as I thought of what I could do to mix things up, I was inspired by the one and only Raquel who used honey goat cheese in a recent dish (yummy quinoa salad with black beans, fire roasted corn, and honey goat cheese...mmmm!). Cracking it out a bit more by adding caramelized onions to the mix, a scrumptious final product was made. When I made this for dinner, we had it together with brown basmati rice and chickpeas. Highly recommended combo.

Ingredients:

1 eggplant
1/3 cup olive oil
cayenne pepper, garlic powder, oregano, salt & pepper
1/2 cup marinara sauce (I always get the tomato basil flavor)
1/4 cup honey goat cheese
1 onion, caramelized
1/3 cup mozzarella cheese
3 tbsp. Parmesan cheese

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 375.


Cut eggplant into 1/2" thick slices, season with 1/2 the requested olive oil, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper. It isn't all that important how much seasoning you put, but just don't smother the eggplant. Put it on a tray and roast it in the oven for 20 minutes.

As the eggplant is roasting, begin to caramelize the onion. Usually full caramelization takes about 30 minutes, however I was a tad impatient and only did it for the 20 minutes while the eggplant was roasting. Also, I feel like they cook more anyway while in the oven afterward.


Heat up a pan on a medium flame and use the other 1/2 of olive oil. Slice the onion in half, and then into strips. Put that in the heated oil and add 1 tbsp. sea salt. Make sure to cover the onion with the oil, stir it up every 30 seconds or so so that it doesn't brown. After about 5 minutes the onion should stop sweating (looks like steaming- because the water is being cooked out) and after about 10 minutes you should start to see some caramelizing goin on. If you don't plan on paying good attention to the onions at this point lower the flame so they don't burn, either way keep stirring up the onions every so often.


After the onions are caramelized, take out a pyrex and start to layer the eggplant-we're going to make 4 layered piles, so put 4 pieces, then 1/2 the tomato sauce, 1/4 of the caramelized onions on each pile, then 1 tbsp. goat cheese per tower, then another layer of eggplant and cover with the rest of the tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and lastly the Parmesan.

Bake on 375 for about 15-20 minutes and then broil for 2 minutes at the end. Serves 4, enjoy!