Grilled Eggplant Gratin

I don't know about you but at least once a week I crave Italian flavored food - the rich combination of cheese, herbs and tomatoes is a real winner in my book. I tried desperately to make last night's dinner meatless but failed miserably. Well at least one part of it was meatless and that's a start.

If imagination is the mother of invention, then it gave birth yesterday to a real tasty little dish. Grilled eggplant combined with grilled plum tomatoes and roasted red peppers, topped with basil, roasted garlic and lots of cheese...dusted with Italian flavored breadcrumbs and a touch of olive oil and heated under the broiler till the cheese melted and the casserole was a nice golden brown. Download Grilled Eggplant Gratin It was delicious on its own but that's not all.

Now this is where the meat comes in ...we had our eggplant gratin on top of a rich, spicy Italian sausage ragu. Well I'm not brave enough to give the big guy a slice of gratin and a salad for dinner so I had to add some meat to the equation, but not a lot of it. A mere half pound of ground hot Italian sausage went into this ragu along with a half a chopped onion and a jar of marinara sauce. It was just enough to satisfy my resident carnivore.

More Eggplant Recipes:

    Fried Eggplant         Ratatouille            The Best Moussaka

Comments

[Mags]

A great compromise for you and your carnivore. I must try eggplant again. I always see it in the grocery store and then draw a blank when I think of ways to use it.

[June]

We love eggplant and eat it fairly often, in fact there's some other great (if I do say so myself LOL) recipes in this blog that make use of it. I've added the links to the bottom of this post to make it easier.

[Sarah G]

I am still learning to love eggplant. This looks like a good recipe to try.

[June]

Sarah it is pretty good, but if you're a little undecided on eggplant, give the Ratatouille a try and it'll swing you to "love it" direction.

[Nanan]

Looks good!

[Katie @ Cozydelicious]

Yum! You are so funny... I would do just the same with the sausage ragu because my husband would whine if we just had eggplant for dinner. This looks lovely, what a tasty dinner,

[June]

Lea - thanks although I do recall that you and tomatoes don't see eye to eye. Sorry!

Katie - these macho males of ours. I threatened to make quiche but he almost had a hissy fit! Ha.