Pasta with Baked Eggplant

The foundation for this meal came from this recipe at AllRecipes. We didn't have all of the specified ingredients, but thought we could experiment, so here's our modified version:

Ingredients

* 1 eggplant, peeled and sliced
* 2 eggs
* 1 tablespoon water
* 1 cup dry bread crumbs
* 2 tomatoes, chopped
* 1 onion, chopped
* 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
* 1 handful of fresh basil
* olive oil
* balsamic vinegar
* fresh mozzarella
* cooked pasta

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet or pizza pan with olive oil.
2. Slice the eggplant slices 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Trim the skin, maintaining the round shape of the slices. In a small bowl, whip together the egg and water. Place the breadcrumbs in a separate small bowl.
3. Dip the eggplant slices one at a time into the egg and water mixture, then into the breadcrumbs. One by one, place the coated slices in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet or pizza pan.
4. Bake in the preheated oven approximately 15 minutes. Change oven setting to broil, and continue cooking 3 to 5 minutes. Check the slices frequently while broiling to avoid burning.
5. While eggplant is baking, cook pasta of your choice.
6. Combine tomato, onion, garlic, and basil in a bowl. Add salt, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar to taste (probably only a splash of each).
7. For serving, place two roasted eggplant slices over pasta. Top with tomato mixture and fresh mozzarella cheese.

Ratatouille

I think we've reached the point in the summer when no one has any problems using up their weekly share. Stuff like blueberries, plums, corn, tomatoes, etc. are all so common (and so delicious) that it's easy to eat them all without much thought.

One dish Katie and I really like, and is any easy combination of many of these vegetables is Ratatouille. We have actually made this dish many times without realizing it was a famous, tried-and-true dish. We called it vegetable hodge-podge and thought it was fantastic, and that was it. Browsing through cookbooks or AllRecipes.com shows many variations that are basically the same thing. Some insist on vegetables sauteed separately and then layered like a casserole. We actually prefer to saute everything together in a large wok. It's just easier. Saute vegetables in this order as some require longer to soften:

Onion
Garlic
Squash
Eggplant
Tomato

Amounts vary based on personal taste and the size of the veggies (i.e. 1 large onion = 2-3 smaller onions) Sometimes, depending on what we have available, we'll add mushrooms or green peppers. We just add them in order of hardest to softest so that they cook through. It really is a hodge-podge and I don't think we've ever made it the same way twice. The flavors are such a good mix that we don't use any herbs or spices, maybe just a little salt and pepper at the end.