Roasted Baby Eggplant with Parmesan

Today I spent much of the day in the quaint little town of Mt. Laurel where my good friend Laura and her husband Mark live. Mt. Laurel has a farmer's market every Saturday (Farmer's markets are another thing that says "summer" to me!). I love the bright colors of vegetables and the amazing shapes and sizes of home-grown veggies. Among my typical tomato purchases, I decided to branch out and get some tiny eggplant. I don't typically like eggplant but these were just too cute to pass up. I came home and found this recipe.

First I'll say that I learned after the fact that the ones I bought were actually not considered "baby" but of the "fairy tale" variety. Quite a difference. In this image I found online, the fairy tale eggplant is on the left and baby squash is on the right. The ones I had bought were so much smaller, that the seasoning the recipe called for was too much. Also, since they were small, you can actually eat the skin and all instead of scooping out the meat to use as a spread. I probably didn't need to pre-salt them as they were likely not bitter to begin with. Test Kitchen Fail? Not really. My husband gave them an 8/10 since they were the only eggplant he has eaten that he liked - just a bit over-seasoned. The farmer told me they were good enough roasted with salt and pepper alone. But did I listen? 😑

The pictures below show the eggplant as a side with green beans (Sam's frozen), fancy smoked salmon from Mt. Laurel Piggly Wiggly, and seasoned/toasted bread for crustini. My husband likes salmon "well done" so I grilled his even more. My plate includes just a heated salmon and adds some slices of a beautiful Heirloom tomato!

So thank you, Laura and Mark, for a sweet visit and facilitating my dinner plans for tonight!

Roasted Baby Eggplant with Parmesan Recipe

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