Serves 4 People

Well, this started out as a recipe from Yakira (volunteer last spring) that seemed easy to follow and problem free, but then we started cooking and things had to be drastically changed (well, not drastically, but we were quite worried that our hopes for dinner in the near future would never reach fruition). Things worked out deliciously well in the end Oh, and if the recipe doesn't work, just put on your thinking caps and invent something!

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized eggplants, in 1/2 inch thick slices and lightly salted to remove the bitterness
• 8 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• a handful of fresh basil leaves for the sauce, plus extra for the final dish
• a few sprigs of fresh oregano
• medium-sized onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced (or more if you're our past coordinators Alex and Rachel!)
• sugar, salt, pepper
• olive oil & other oil for frying (if desired)
• tomato paste (medium can or two small cans)
• store-bought fine bread crumbs
• two eggs (or more?)
• mozzarella & parmesan cheeses

Alex's Special Sauce (thick version)

Put a shallow sauce pan over medium heat and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan evenly. When the oil is hot, add the onion and garlic and sautee until light brown. Add your chopped tomatoes, basil, oregano, few pinches of salt, and a bit of pepper, stir around, and cover. Suppress impatient urges to check on the tomatoes every thirty seconds?hey have to turn into mush and constant observation destroys the heat-pressure equilibrium.

When mush has been achieved, add your tomato paste and maybe two teaspoons of sugar. You can also use tomato sauce (as we do in Mexico where tomato paste is hard to find). It will just need to cook down longer. Also, the sugar can be adjusted. You're looking for the sauce to have a noticeable sweet undertone. Work with it. Turn the heat to low and let the sauce cook down until it is fairly thick and almost spreadable in nature. Set aside when finished.

The Eggplant Quandary: We dipped and coated, what will you do?

Okay, so Yakira told us to make a batter-type mixture with the eggs and bread crumbs which was impossible to spread on the eggplant slices and had Rachel throwing her arms up in hungry despair. But we at the Peace House are inventive little devils, so here's what we did:

Much in the fashion of the Enchilada Assembly line, set up an Eggplant Assembly Line, with a bowl of whipped egg with a bit of bread crumbs at the left, a plate of bread crumbs in the middle, and an empty plate (to be filled and sent to the Frying Station). Dip each slice in egg, coat with bread crumbs, and place on the frying plate.

At the Frying Station, have ready a new plate with paper towels or paper bags torn into oil soaking-sized pieces. Heat a frying pan of oil (at least half an inch of oil) until drops of water can "dance" off the oil. Fry the eggplant slices. It is at this stage that the eggplant will receive the most actual "cooking," so experiment until the slices are done enough to be eaten as-is out of the frying pan.

Stacks of Heaven

At some point before now the oven should have been heated to 350 degrees-ish. Now comes the time to stack everything for baking. We don't have one of those nice glass baking dishes, so we used a stew pot and things went fine.

Pour a bit of sauce to coat the bottom of your baking dish. Lay down a layer of eggplant. Add mozzarella slices (not too thick!), a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, basil leave, and a nice layer of sauce. Repeat the process: eggplant, cheeses, basil, sauce.

Cover the dish and stick in the oven, monitoring for cheese melting and sauce bubbling. You can wait longer if you wish, and have really hot, melty cheese. We were really hungry and so whipped the dish out of the oven as soon as cheese meltiness had begun.

Oh eggplant parmesan, how we love thee!

Thanks to Yakira, for her confusing yet still inspiring recipe!