Put Some Stuffing In It

**Sneaky post...I've back dated it!**

While organizing some more of the recipes (I've decided to transcribe some of the newspaper clippings onto postcards for a more uniform look) I came across a stuff eggplant recipe.  I've never been an eggplant person, until I had some on a pizza while in Florence.  For whatever reason, it was the magic timing, and I've been enjoying eggplant.  Plus, that eggplant dish from Ket-Mo-Reh in Davis just makes me drool every time!

So, I purchased an eggplant from the store, hoping that I picked good ones.  By the way, how do you know if it's a good eggplant?  Once I got home, I started organizing my ingredients and getting things in order.

The dish took awhile to prepare, and had a lot of steps.  However, I found it really fun to make.  The entire time I was thinking it would have been nice to have someone other than Winston to chat with, but I made do with the dog and a glass of wine.  At least I had some good tunes going while this was in progress!

 

I really can't enough of Mr. Cast Iron!

 This part of the sauteing had garlic, mushrooms, olive oil, bread crumbs, basil and a host of other equally delicious food.  I could have just kept at this part forever.

This smelled amazing!

I'm thinking next time I could have carved a bit more out of the eggplant for some thinner sides.  It worked out well enough, but I found them to be a little thick when it came time to eat.

Before the cheesy goodness.

 Talk about an awesome, almost healthy dinner!  The ranch dressing is handmade, the bacon bits were from bacon leftover from the weekend and, of course, there's fresh stuffed eggplant!  I ended up only being able to eat half of a half.  Good meal idea for guests (if they like eggplant).  By the end of the week, I was pretty tired of the dish!

I even made a salad!