Amazing Eggplant

In my quest to eat healthier, delicious meals I asked around for some recipes. My teaching partner, Nilay, shared a recipe that her roommate shared with her for cooking eggplant. And of course, I tweaked and played with it in order to come to my own interpretation. :) What can I say? It's just my way.

I used one of the large eggplants and sliced it into 1/3" slices or so. I then boiled and salted some water. I dropped my eggplants into the water to soften them up a bit. I think they sat in there for about 3-5 minutes. While they were boiling away I made the following mix for coating them for the next step of cooking:

1 cup corn meal
1 tsp dried dill
1 tsp dried garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
a dash of salt and pepper.

Then I took out my eggplant circles from their water (but I didn't get rid of the water, instead I poured in a little extra virgin olive oil and my pasta) and tossed them in the coating mixture. Once they were well coated, I put them in a hot pan with olive oil and browned them on both sides.

Then I plated the whole mess up and topped the pasta with diced, canned tomatoes. It was delicious and for a leftover, I put the eggplant circles in a container, topped them with the rest of the tomatoes and a slice of cheese (like eggplant parmesan) for heating up at the lunchroom.

It was an excellent, fulfilling and healthy dish. I hope you enjoy!!!