[senior citizen]

Prep time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4

BAKED STUFFED EGGPLANT

A large eggplant is hollowed out and it's flesh is mixed with crumbled Italian sausage (out of its casings and sauteed)........garlic, Progresso dry bread crumbs, parm cheese.........the filling is then stuffed back into the shells and topped with parm cheese (I put some shredded mozarella on at the end)....and baked.

Great as a main course but you can buy the mini eggplants and use them as a side dish or appetizer..........just buy more of the mini eggplants.

INGREDIENTS:
1 VERY LARGE EGGPLANT, HALVED LENGTHWISE
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup white wine (or not)
2 cups Italian seasoned Progresso dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
(Shredded mozarella if you want to top the eggplant boats & brown at end)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scoop out the flesh of the eggplant, chop it and reserve.
If you score the interior both ways, little squares will pop out.

Season shells with salt and pepper, and coat with some olive oil....inside and out.....just a bit.

Set aside.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large deep skillet over medium high heat.
Saute sausage and garlic until sausage is evenly browned.
Stir in the reserved and chopped eggplant.
Season with parsley, salt and pepper.
Pour in wine and cook 5 minutes. You can eliminate the wine.
Mix in the bread crumbs and 1/4 cup parm cheese.
If mixture is dry, stir in more olive oil.
Stuff mixture into eggplant shells, and sprinkle top with remaining parmesan.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until eggplant is tender....depending on its size.........you can top with shredded mozarella at end and let it melt......that's what I do.

Teenagers love this; people of all ages.

You can substitute diced up pepperoni if you don't want the crumbeld sausage.

You can make it all vegetarian by substituting chopped mushrooms for the sausage meat.......improvise. The chopped eggplant gets very tender after the sauteeing and the baking.............

Enjoy. Oh, you can also do this with zucchini boats....but need a lot more of them.

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