You say aubegine, I say eggplant, we both say lasange

Whenever I think of what term to use when speaking about that deep purple egg shaped vegetable I think of Kath and Kim. You remember that episode when they were painting their hall walls and ended up with egg (yellow) colour instead of eggplant?

Great Australian sitcoms aside, eggplant is a vegetable that took me a while to appreciate. I've bought it plenty of times but usually it shrivels and gets sores before I work out what to do with it. I don't know what it is about that shiny deep purple skin that draws me in and before I know it I've got home with two eggplants and no idea what to do with them.

I had one such moment just recently and determined not to let these two beauties go to waste I googled eggplant recipes. I found a recipe for eggplant lasagne. I didn't have all the ingredients but that hasn't stopped me before so I just threw caution to the wind and risked it. I didn't have any tomato so I cheated. I used a bottle of Barilla Olive tomato sauce. I didn't have the ricotta or herbs it asked for so made a white sauce type thing.

The recipe
I've got into the habit now of writing out what I do and add just in case I stumble across a delicious accident.

Ingredients:
2 eggplants
2 tbsp garlic infused olive oil
olive oil cooking spray
40g butter
25g gluten-free plain flour
1 1/4 cups soy milk
1/4 cup fetta
400g of tomato and olive type sauce.
A handful of grated tasty cheese

Putting it together:

1. Slice eggplant into 1cm thick rounds
2. Brush the eggplant rounds with the garlic infused oil and place on a baking tray
3. Bake in a 180 degree oven for 20 minutes (or so), turning after 10 minutes. They should be tender.
4. Set aside to cool
5. Melt butter in saucepan
6. Add flour slowly and stir until thickened
7. Gradually add the soy milk then stir until it boils and thickens
8. Remove from head and stir through the crumbled fetta (oops I meant heat - if it's on your head you may have had the heat a little too high!)
9. Grease three smallish pyrex dishes 6cm deep
10. Layer in the following order

• Eggplant (close together - overlap if needed)
• 1/3 tomato sauce
• 1/2 white sauce
• Eggplant (press down gently)
• 1/3 tomato sauce
• Eggplant
• Rest of white sauce
• Sprinkle with tasty cheese
• Bake for 20 minutes

Results
The soy white sauce was a little strange but once it was in with all the rest of the ingredients it wasn't noticeable. I was surprised when the gluten-free flour worked in the white sauce and usually I would use parmesan cheese but I only had tasty or fetta and I wanted to use up the fetta.

before

After

Well, it tasted delicious! It was even better the day after once all the flavours had developed.

Verdict
I will be making this one again for sure. I really want to try the ricotta cheese option too so I might actually PLAN to make it next time.