melanzane alla parmigiana

 Simple, homemade chunky tomato sauce

Today I made melanzane alla parmigiana, a.k.a. eggplant parmigiana.  I loosely followed a recipe I found on the Food52 website, combined it with a Mario Batali recipe I found on the Food Network sire.  I have made melanzane alla parmigiana before, but have always found cooking the eggplant slices immensely labor-intensive.  This Food52 recipe has you BAKE eggplant slices, which seemed a good, time-saving method -- and much less messy and labor intensive than pan frying eggplant slices.  And it all turned out wonderfully and easily.  A nice, simple recipe, and the result was delicious.   I think next time I will slice the eggplant a lot thinner, but all in all it was a great first attempt at this new method of cooking up the eggplant slices. 

 Didn't quite hold the shape as I plated it, but it tasted fantastic regardless.