Italian Comfort Food; Eggplant Parmesan

This dish is easy, delicious and filling.  It's packed full of veggies and robust flavors, and goes perfectly with a glass of full bodied, dry red wine.

I cut the eggplant into thin slices, and coat each slice with seasoned flour.  It's then pan fried in olive oil until it  lightly browns.

My sauce is simple, and you will see it used frequently in my dishes; I use tomato, olive oil, chopped onion, chopped spinach, garlic and herbs, and cook it down until it's fragrant and thick.

The filling between layers of eggplant is a mélange of finely chopped red peppers, onions, zuchini, squash, spinach and garlic. Each layer also gets a slice of fresh mozzarella, and some crumbled parmesan.  I top it off with several slices of eggplant, and bake it until it is hot and the cheese is melted.  It is then topped with a heaping serving of red sauce. Bueno!

Homemade; Fresh Salmon Ravioli With Red Sauce

We cooked this on September 18, 2010, so it was technically still summer. This dish was fun to make and absolutely wonderful to eat.  We made fresh pasta with my hand crank pasta maker, and cut the raviolis from the sheets of pasta.  The salmon was seasoned  with garlic, herbs, salt, pepper and olive oil, and then baked.  Our sauce is always homemade; slow cooked tomato, olive oil, cabernet, scallion, garlic, fresh basil and herbs, and salt and pepper, I added mushrooms at end. We stuffed the raviolis with salmon, basil, spinach and cream and parmesan cheeses.  Enjoy the pictures!