Not for the faint of heart...
I made eggplant parmesan today. It was supposed to be even better than the batch I made yesterday (which was eaten with gusto). I don't know exactly what the flavor/quality of this batch will be, but I can certainly tell you I made more blunders preparing it. What a mess! Almost bad enough to throw in the towel and start over again. But so much work I didn't want to!
I spent Peter's morning nap preparing the egg whites and the breading material, cutting the eggplant into 1/2 inch slices, and dipping/breading them on their way to the cookie sheet. That's where the calm precision ended. My oven wasn't preheated and the slices sat in there for more than 15 minutes before it was probably hot enough to start the 20 minute clock ticking. Anyway...I forgot about them. OH -- and I turned the oven up about 75 degrees to speed up the preheating process. Silly me.
So, by the time I remembered, they were *crispy* and some burnt to the point of disposing. I was supposed to flip them and back another 20 minutes, but this was not necessary. The next batch wasn't much better -- in the middle of feeding myself and Peter I remembered the oven. Too late!! And this pan needed the grease I forgot to apply. So with much scraping, these slices didn't have much coating left. Maybe that's a good thing -- less charcoal for the unsuspecting potluck guests.
Well, it's in the fridge now and ready for its Sabbath morning bake -- hopefully at the right temperature and for the right length of time.
I turned around at one point in the process and this is what I saw:
I spent Peter's morning nap preparing the egg whites and the breading material, cutting the eggplant into 1/2 inch slices, and dipping/breading them on their way to the cookie sheet. That's where the calm precision ended. My oven wasn't preheated and the slices sat in there for more than 15 minutes before it was probably hot enough to start the 20 minute clock ticking. Anyway...I forgot about them. OH -- and I turned the oven up about 75 degrees to speed up the preheating process. Silly me.
So, by the time I remembered, they were *crispy* and some burnt to the point of disposing. I was supposed to flip them and back another 20 minutes, but this was not necessary. The next batch wasn't much better -- in the middle of feeding myself and Peter I remembered the oven. Too late!! And this pan needed the grease I forgot to apply. So with much scraping, these slices didn't have much coating left. Maybe that's a good thing -- less charcoal for the unsuspecting potluck guests.
Well, it's in the fridge now and ready for its Sabbath morning bake -- hopefully at the right temperature and for the right length of time.
I turned around at one point in the process and this is what I saw:
