The adventure of the leftovers

So as I stated in the last post, I accidently bought an extra eggplant for the recipe yesterday. Those suckers aren't cheap, so I was determined to use it. I did a bit of googling for what I had in the cupboards, and an eggplant/polenta casserole dish came up care of Martha Stewart.  It looked fairly simple. Fry up some onions and garlic, stir in peeled tomatoes and spices. Lightly Fry (unbreaded) eggplant in another skillet, then pop it all in a casserole dish and bake.

Mistake #1:

I bought canned tomatoes cause I'll be damned if I'm peeling 2 pounds of grape tomatoes by hand. I wasn't really thinking and poured the excess water out, though to be fair, that was like an inch in each can.

Mistake #2

Burned the garlic.....just had the skillet up too high I guess (See last entry!) I figured with all the other stuff in it this wouldn't be too bad though.


So then I added the tomatoes:

So far so good. On to fry the eggplant. I turned the skillet WAY DOWN to avoid a repeat of the Eggplant Inquisition Burnings of the night before.

Mistake #3: Undercooked eggplant
So apparently the only options on my stove are BURNT or Slightly warmed. The eggplant ended up the latter.

Ah well. So even though the recipe didn't call for cheese, I had some fresh mozzerella leftover from the night before. I took it out with the intention of adding it on top at the end before baking. Problem was, the tomato base had to cook for 30 minutes. That's a long time when you're hungry. So this is how much mozzerella I had left after 15 minutes:

                                                                        FAIL

So the sauce cooked down WAY too far, even after I added water. I even stopped short of 30 minutes. Recipe said to spread a layer of sauce, then eggplant, then sauce, then polenta, then sauce.....I had this much to work with (well, slightly less after picture):

NOWHERE near enough for the pan size recommended (9x9)

Suggested result:

My result:

NAILED IT!

And I assure you the other layers were comparably skimpy. 

As a bonus, I also burned my hand THROUGH the (albeit cheap) oven mitt. It wasn't a bad burn though.....until I accidently dropped and grabbed the leftover bread I'd heated up in the oven :-/

Not too bad.....although typing this hurts.

WORTH THE EFFORT?
Not really.  There wasn't a ton of flavor, but it wasn't awful. Needed some cheese and clearly lots more sauce. I'd also replace half the onion with some other veggie.

Kitchen Damage: Not too bad....two skillets and a cutting board.