I posted a request for some dinner ideas over at gather.com last week and Cori was nice enough to post several ideas, I became inspired by the ideas and was able to make a fun dinner. Now I am returning the favor! I am not sure if anyone needs dinner ideas tonight but here it goes!
This recipe was in our local news paper, the news paper cited the recipe as being from Eating Royally and the article in the paper said this was one of Princess Diana’s favorite recipes. I changed the recipe up a bit to suit my own tastes.
I used: 3 small eggplants (each about 6 inches long), 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 1 small red onion, 1 pattypan/ sunburst squash, olive oil, 1 large tomato and garlic.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut each eggplant in half, then cut all the way around the inside of the eggplant (almost separating the flesh from the skin). After you cut around the inside of the eggplant skin slice some small x’s into the thicker parts of the flesh. We will be scooping the flesh out of the eggplant and will leave the skin as a “shell” to stuff with goodies.
Once the eggplant has been cut and x-ed you should brush it with olive oil, the olive oil is to keep the eggplant flesh tender and moist, if you are not careful the edges may burn so put extra olive oil around the edges! Cook the eggplant halves for about 15-20 min.
While the eggplant are cooking
slice up your squash, onion and zucchini (zucchini is also a squash if you were wondering) and toss them with olive oil and garlic. You can use fresh garlic, garlic powder or garlic salt. Saute the squash and onions till they are softened and seasoned to taste. Overcooking will make the squash soggy and mushy so keep an eye on them while they cook.
Once your squash and onion are nice and soft you need to add chopped tomato and remove the pan/ skillet from the heat. Allow the vegetables to cool and go back to the eggplant halves.
Scoop the flesh from the eggplants leaving about 1/4 of an inch of flesh still in the eggplant half, this will be the shell that the vegetables go into. Once all the eggplant halves have had the flesh scooped out chop all the scooped flesh into chunks and add it to your vegetable mix.
Fill the eggplant shells/ halves with the vegetable mix and bake for about 15 min at 350 degrees. When the eggplant halves come out of the
oven you can garnish them with some shredded cheese, Parmesan cheese, bacon bits or whatever your heart desires!
