Tomato, Tomato

A while back, DMP and I canned tomatoes. Lots, and Lots, and LOTS of tomatoes. We were very optimistic and bought about 25 lbs at the farmers market. This is the first time we've canned tomatoes and it was pretty fun and easy. We'll see if and how we use the final product!

As you can see from the pic above, we canned diced tomatoes, salsa, and when we discovered we still had a TON of leftover tomatoes, we decided to try tomato sauce.

Canning tomatoes is a gory process- very suitable to October. Especially squishing their guts out for tomato sauce:

Thanks to DMP for helping. I learned that canning with company is WAY more fun than canning solo- plus there is someone to take pictures of your gory hands!

Recipe- Eggplant Pannini

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've kind of had blogger's block. I was actually trying to think of something interesting enough to post and came up with nothing. Good thing we went to an indoor arena football game and had a family party this weekend to spice things up!

In the meantime, I wanted to share a recipe for the awesome sandwiches we had tonight. We gobbled them up so quickly I forgot to get a picture- sorry! We got this recipe from our new BH&G "Vegetarian Cooking" cookbook.

Eggplant Panini

1 cup torn arugla (can sub spinach, arugla is spicer)
2 t. red wine vinegar (we had garlic flavored- yum!)
1 t. olive oil

Toss together in a small bowl.

1 Eggplant, cut into 1/2 in. thick rounds
3 oz fresh Mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
1 12in. plain or seasoned round foccacia bread, halved horizontally
1 large tomato, thinly sliced
1/3 c. seasoned dry bread crumbs
2T parmesan cheese
1 egg
1T milk
2T flour

In a shallow dish, beat together egg and milk. In another dish, stir the bread crumbs and parm. cheese. Put the flour in a third dish. (we're breading the eggplant, see how that works?) Dip the eggplant slices inot the flour to coat, then dip into the egg mixture and last, into the crumb mixture.

In a 12 in. non-stick skillet, heat 1T oil over med. heat. Add eggplant slices and cook for 6-8 min. or until lightly browned, turning once. Top the eggplant slices with the mozzarella cheese. Cook, covered, just until the cheese begins to melt.

To serve, put the eggplant slices cheese side up on bottom half of bread. Top with the arugala mixture and tomato slices (and the top half of the bread, of course). Cut into serving-size wedges.

TIP: To keep the eggplant from tasting bitter, you will need to "degorge" it (I know, it sounds disgusting). Just make sure you rinse it really well- we didn't do a great job and it was a bit salty...

This was super-quick and really, really yummy! You can also make a great "second day" meal with the leftovers- just put some spaghetti sauce and some of the parm cheese on the eggplant/mozz and viola- eggplant parm!