stuffed eggplant

A couple of weeks ago, on a chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon, I was perusing some of my cookbooks, looking for some inspiration. I wanted to get the jump on some dinners and go outside our current dinner rut. I came across a recipe for stuffed tomatoes in La Tartine Gourmande which gave me the idea of stuffing eggplant. To prepare the eggplant, I cut them in half lengthwise and roasted them until they were soft and toasty brown. I scraped out the pulp inside to leave the shells to stuff and incorporated it into some leftover meat and spinach mixture from some Canneloni crepes I had made. I piled the meat and veg mixture into the eggplant shells, dolloped some jarred marinara sauce over the top and then topped that with some parmesan crumbles before popping the dish into the oven.

It made a lovely supper and was a nice change from our usual dinner rotation.

Pork and Spinach Mixture for stuffing vegetables or crepes
1 medium onion, sliced
1 lb ground pork
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp dried sage
6 mushrooms, sliced
1 bag of spinach
1/2 c frozen peas
1/2 c frozen corn kernels
grated nutmeg, salt and pepper

In a saute pan, brown the onion and pork together, stirring to keep from sticking. Once the meat has lost it's pink colour, add the garlic and sage and mushrooms. Keep the mixture moving, until the mushrooms have given off their liquid, then add the spinach. Once the spinach is wilted, add in the peas and corn and season with the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

This mixture will fill 12 crepes or 6 medium eggplants - I did 8 crepes for one supper and 2 eggplants for antoher supper.