Breaded Eggplant - In the Kitchen with Kayleigh

If you've read my "about me" page, you'll know that my daughter and I had a food blog for several years called "Besides Pizza".  Since I had her in the kitchen with me basically since birth, when she was about 10 years old we decided to blog about the recipes we cooked together and then give her opinion of how they tasted.  As she got older, her school activities started taking up more time until we got to the point where not only was she not around to cook with me, she rarely even had time to post a comment.  

Her last track meet was last Saturday so this week she has started getting home at 3:30 instead of 5:45.  I decided to take advantage of it and pull her back into the kitchen with me!  It was fantastic to have her back helping again.  I didn't realize how much I missed it.

We tried to come up with a name for this recipe but really struggled.  We call it "Eggplant Parmesan" even though it is vegan.  I used to follow a basic recipe that involved dipping the eggplant in egg and breading it with Parmesan.  We adjusted the recipe years ago to make it vegan but never changed the name.  We couldn't come up with anything interesting though so I'm going with Breaded Eggplant, because that is what it is!

Breaded Eggplant

Eggplant (about 1 large or 2 small), sliced
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 T hemp seeds (optional)
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup non-dairy milk
Salt

Place the eggplant slices on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet.  Score the top of each slice and then sprinkle with salt.  Turn the pieces over and let set one hour.  (You can skip this step if you are in a hurry but it is worth doing).

Place each slice between paper towels and press to remove excess water.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place milk in a bowl.  Mix remaining ingredients in a separate bowl and mix to combine.

Dip each slice of eggplant in the milk and then into the breadcrumb mixture to coat.  Place them on the baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes turning once half way through.  For extra browning, switch to the broiler for final 2 minutes.

We eat these on pasta with spaghetti sauce but we've also been known to eat the leftovers cold out of the fridge!