How do you prepare eggplant?

I love making eggplant florentine. Here's what I do: peel it, slice it into 1/4" rounds and sprinkle both sides with salt to draw out the moisture (about an hour). Then I wipe the salt away and pat dry with paper towels.

In a shallow dish, I mix egg substitute and skim milk, then dip the eggplant in before dredging in instant potato flakes seasoned with Italian seasonings (sounds odd, but so yummy and bakes up crispy). Lay breaded eggplant on a baking sheet and bake at 400F for 20 minutes or 'til golden (turning over halfway through for evening browning).

When done, I spray a baking dish with non-stick spray and add a layer of spaghetti sauce to the bottom of the dish. Then I arrange a single layer of eggplant and top with a mixture of low-fat cottage cheese, chopped spinach (fresh or frozen and well drained), and garlic. Repeat the layers (sauce, eggplant, cheese) finishing with eggplant. Pour more spaghetti sauce over the top and sprinkle with part-skim mozzarella. Cover and bake at 375F for 45 minutes, then uncover and bake another 15 minutes to brown the cheese.

Serve with your choice of salad, minestrone soup, veggies and/or garlic bread. I make a big tray of this and freeze individual servings to bring to work for lunch. It's reeeeally good!

HungryMonkey, you have made me hungry! I love eggplant and this sounds wonderful.

I could eat the eggplant just like this without even adding all the other stuff. I love eggplant. I purge mine before cooking as well. I sometimes make eggplant spaghetti. After purging I cut the slices into strips and cook them in a skillet with garlic, tomatoes and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

I cook it in the microwave until soft. Cut open and take out pulp. Mash it with:

plain ff yogurt
some tahini
cumin
lemon juice (just a little)
sea salt
ground black pepper
a little paprika

Use it as a dip for crackers, pita or fresh veggies. Yum!

HungryMonkey, I'm trying your recipe today. Except instead of adding all the rest of the stuff and baking it, I'm just going to try it with the potato flakes and seasonings and baked until crispy. That just sounds so good to me.

Thanks for posting it

I hope you like it! A warning, though - if you cut your eggplant slices too thin, it tastes just like potato chips! Which is tasty (as I accidentally discovered the first time I made it), but probably not what you're going for.

Let me know how it turns out!

It was so awesome I ate almost an entire eggplant, lol.

Luckily eggplant is one of those foods that doesn't have a whole lot of calories.

This might sound weird, but I dipped the eggplant strips into ketchup! It was yummy!

are u sopouse to eat the skin or not ......lol I always ate it

Sometimes I eat the skin, sometimes not. If I'm just slicing it in rounds for eggplant parmesan or to fry the slices, then I leave the skin on. If I'm purging the eggplant (salting it and letting it sit for 30-40 minutes) then I peel it.

Eggplants are like sponges, they soak up oils and juices very quickly. Purging the eggplant gives it a firmer texture and the salt pulls the moisture out of it.

cool thanx ....I am brand new to this eggplant thing...Now that I startet my diet,,,,,I want to try differnt foods.
Avocado is next lol

I looooove avocado. I like it in salads, on sandwiches and in wraps and I'll even sit and eat them as is.

Yay! Glad you liked it

I don't think it's weird that you dipped it in ketchup - eggplant has such a mild flavor that the potato flake breading adds a french-fry like taste. We should call them "faux fries"

You can eat the skin if you want, but I prefer it peeled. When baked the skin gets a little tough. Also, different varieties of eggplant have different skins (a little something I learned from Iron Chef America ). The skins of the standard purple ones found at most America groceries are tender enough to eat. The white ones, on the other hand, should be peeled.