Skinny Eggplant Parmesan

Okay.  Enough with the hair for a day. 

Skinny Eggplant Parmesan.

I love making this recipe.  Eggplant was my family's ultimate comfort food when I was a girl.  It sang our heritage, our ups and downs.  It was always the center of the first meal my mother always prepared for me when I came home from college or from touring that let me know that I was actually home.  My mom still makes it the first night I come home to Pennsylvania whenever I visit.
Now.  Usually Eggplant Parmesan is a pretty fattening dish, but it doesn't have to be.  What makes my Eggplant Parmesan different from the rest is that I do not fry my breaded eggplant.  I bake it.
I also use fresh mozzarella, and not the packaged kind that is full of extra sodium.

It ends up:

1. Tasting better.
2. Leaving you with a full belly that isn't full of heavy oil.
   

Ingredients:

• 1 Medium-Large Eggplant
• breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbl. Milk, or any milk substitute would do just fine
• Fresh mozzarella 
• Fresh marinara sauce (handmade or local is always better tasting, and better for you...no weird ingredients.)
• Olive Oil

Supplies:

• 2 baking sheets
• Frying pan, or whatever you really have that will heat it up

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350*F.
2. Peel the Eggplant (you can leave the skin on, but it is bitter, tough, and has a noticeably different texture that I don't like.) then slice it into about 1/4 inch coins.
3. Beat Eggs and about 2 tbl. milk together.  Dip the eggplant coins into the Eggs/milk, and then cover them in breadcrumbs.
4. Lightly brush the baking sheet with olive oil, and proceed to lay the eggplant onto the sheets.
5. Bake for 10 minutues, turn the eggplant coins over and proceed to bake for another 10 mins, and remove the baking sheet once the eggplant is soft (or until a fork will slip out of the eggplant easily.)
6. Heat the frying pan, and add 1/2 cup marinara sauce to the bottom of the pan.  Proceed to lay the eggplant in the frying pan one at a time.  Follow the pattern:  Eggplant, marinara sauce, mozzarella.  Repeat.
7. Cook until everything is warm, melty, and delicious.