My Grandma was born 78 years ago of hearty Irish, meat-and-potatoes-with-soda-bread stock. Then she married into a pasta-loving Italian family that owned a fish market in upstate New York and celebrated Christmas Eve with an eight-course meal so decadent, she is pretty sure it sent her into early labor with her firstborn child.
Needless to say, moderation is not in Grandma's dictionary. Visits like the one I made over Christmas call for a three-day food coma detox program. But God love her, I wouldn't have it any other way! She is the best cook I know.
Her Hot Mitts cookbook, compiled and printed several years ago for the family, is the most used among many on my kitchen shelf. That said, I am after all a personal trainer and fitness instructor whose job demands a certain level of "practice what ya preach."
So I sometimes apply a different measuring stick to her recipes - more than a few of which call, literally, for "generous amounts of olive oil"and "butter (lots of it)." Yeah, about that food coma...
At Christmas I watched her make her eggplant casserole for an appetizer - "just a little something to munch on," she says - and was somewhat horrified by the amount of olive oil she used. The eggplant was drowning. My eyes were bulging. I ate it, and it was as delicious as when she first made it 30 years ago, but that blissful ignorance was gone and I started thinking about a moderation modification, so to speak.
I reduced the amount of olive oil to a quarter cup for the entire dish (which serves six as a side dish or appetizer), used whole wheat bread crumbs and less of them than she does. Same for the grated cheese.
Guess what? It is still delicious, and a great make-ahead dish that can be used throughout the week. Add in diced chicken or even ground turkey, and it's an easy, healthy entree casserole.
I hope you enjoy it! As Grandma says: "Mangia!...and have a little more."
Grandma Colavecchio's Eggplant Casserole, Badass-Approved
Ingredients:
- 1 large or 2 small eggplants, diced
- 2 or 3 medium peppers (green, red or yellow)
- 2 medium onions, diced
- 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
- salt, pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3/4 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
- 1/3 cup grated Romano or parmesan cheese
- 1 1/2 cups diced chicken or ground cooked turkey (optional, to make it an entree)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Pour the olive oil into a large skillet and heat to medium-high. Put all the vegetables into the skillet and sautee, turning often, until it is tender.
- Season with salt and pepper as it cooks. It will cook down, and the natural moisture of the vegetables will mix in with the olive oil to keep it plenty moist. Drain the juices from the skillet when vegetables are done.
- In a 9-inch casserole dish or square baking pan, sprinkle some of the breadcrumbs along the bottom.
- Next put in a layer of the cooked vegetables (and protein if you're using it), topped with some breadcrumbs, then some of the grated cheese. Repeat the layers, ending with the last of the grated cheese on top. This ends up being 3 to 4 layers.
- Bake at 350 degrees, covered for about 20 minutes, and then uncovered for another 10 to 15 minutes.
Coming next week: Lessons from an ultramarathoner, and 3 core moves you might be skipping but shouldn't...