Stuffed Eggplant Canoe

Stuffed what?!

Yes you read correctly Stuffed Eggplant Canoe.

Thursday's Treat!

Last night after work I was exhausted and had a lot to do. I had emails to read, pictures to edit, company coming over and didn't want to invest a lot of time in the kitchen. I remembered I had bought two lovely Eggplants on Saturday after my visit with grandma and the Salon. I only grab them when on sale and the size is right. I don't want to waste time or money if I won't use the whole veggie.

I was wondering how to use them this time and googled some ideas found one I liked and tweaked it to my likes, here it is.

Ingredients:
-2 medium eggplants
-olive oil
-2 small tomatoes
-peppers
-2 garlic cloves
-parsley
-shredded / grated cheese
-breadcrumbs
-Parmesan cheese (optional)
-salt (optional)

So you recall I used the word canoe in my title right? Well that is because what you are going to do is scoop the inside of the eggplant out not to deep but just enough to form a canoe shape and set the insides aside for stuffing!!!

Heat a large skillet on medium with 2 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil when hot add 2 cloves of garlic minced when that cooks down a bit add the eggplant pieces. Cook for about 5/7 minutes then add 2 small tomatoes chopped into small cubes. I had 1 small tomato and 1 can of diced so I used that instead. I used 1 handful of red peppers diced in small pieces and 1 handful of orange just for variety you can use plan ole green ones and 1 tablespoon of parsley.
I tossed to spread everything evenly and cooked that for another 10 minutes.

While that cooked in a bowl I added 3 cups of breadcrumbs you can use plain or seasoned. I used the Italian seasoned one and added 1 cup Parmesan cheese. I love cheese! I mixed that and removed skillet from heat and dropped the eggplant stuffing in the bowl. I mixed it all up till even coated.

I used a large serving spoon to scoop stuffing onto the eggplant canoes, I made 4 so I made sure every canoe was evenly filled. I sprinkled more cheese on top, this time a 6 cheese Italian blend.
I placed them on a baking tray and baked for 30 minutes. Making sure cheese was semi melted and eggplant canoe tender enough to eat.

Wow what an amazing blend of flavors! My daughter took hers to school today and texted me to say how yummy it was another two thumbs up from my picky eater yippy!
I didn't make a side because the "stuffing" had peppers, tomatoes, cheeses and breadcrumbs I thought that was enough.

Enjoy!

Always stress free xo.