Well Hello Eggplant!

I know this may come as a surprise to many of you, but I've never had eggplant before. Until about a week ago, when my amazing sister in law made eggplant parm for the football crew. I tried it, and I liked it. So I thought, "huh...that didn't kill me. I wonder if I could make this at home?" 

So last weekend when I was grocery shopping, I found the eggplants (I've literally never seen them in the grocery store before) and decided I was going to make crispy fried eggplant with pasta! Sort of a deconstructed eggplant parm. Maybe? I dunno I made this up. The best part about this recipe is that I gave it to the hubs, AND HE ATE IT ALL!!!! He even agreed to have me try another eggplant recipe sometime. 

Here's what I did:

1 eggplant sliced into 1/8" to 1/4" slices. 

Dredging stations: flour, egg & panko (mixed with parmesan, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning)

Frying pan with  oil for shallow frying

Slice your eggplant and dust with salt. Leave in a colander for about 30 minutes to pull some of the water out.

Pat with paper towel to remove extra water

Heat the oil in the pan

Coat eggplant with flour, then egg, then panko

Fry until brown on both sides

Remove and blot with paper towel, then move to cooling rack (to avoid getting soggy)

Pair with pasta or salad or other things. We had pasta with red sauce and it was SO GREAT!! I'm pretty proud to say I eat eggplant now :D

I had three slices but I devoured the first one before realizing I needed to take a picture. Oops :)