Baked Eggplant Parmesan

Nothing is better on a crisp November afternoon than Eggplant Parm. The hubby loves all things italian. I absolutely love this baked eggplant parm recipe even though it takes a little time. File this one under meatless Mondays. I love this recipe because I usually have everything on hand but the eggplant! :)

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

Here's what you'll need:

Pam or oil to grease baking sheets

2 large eggs

3/4 C italian breadcrumbs

3/4 C italian panko

3/4 C shaved or grated parmesan

Salt & Pepper

2 1/2lbs eggplant (2 large ones)

36-48 oz of your favorite red pasta sauce

1 C part skim shredded mozzerella 

Preheat your oven to 375F. Take your eggplants and slice them into 1/2 inch thick, round sections.

Whisk together 2 TBS if water and the eggs. Set these aside in a wide bowl.

Combine s&p, panko, breadcrumbs, and 1/4 C of Parmesan in another bowl.

Dredge your eggplant slices in the egg mixer, allowing the excess to drip off.

Then dredge in the dry mixture.

I then patted it gently and transferred to a greased baking sheet. I'm lazy about clean up so I line my trays with foil first ;)

Once you fill 1 or 2 trays, put them in the oven for 50 minutes. Flip the eggplant half way through.

Remove from oven and turn the heat up to 400F. Pour some sauce to cover the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. 

Then add a layer of eggplant, a layer of sauce, and then a layer of cheese.

Then repete with remaining eggplant.

Cook in the 400F oven for 15-20 minutes until hot and bubbly!

Let stand for 5 minutes before devouring ;). This makes 10 servings that have about 200 cal per serving. I usually serve this with a salad or green veggie. I hope y'all love it like we do! Comment with any questions you may have.

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DIY No-Sew Scarf Tutorial

Tis the season for gift exchanges and I am going to one on Sunday. It's called a Pinterest party and we are all bringing Pinterest inspired gifts and food. I have left over minky material from one of my crafts and decided at $15 a yard, I was not going to waste any. Here's a quickie on how to make a no sew scarf out of really soft minky fabric!

I took the fabric and folded it in thirds, hotdog style. I cut 4-4 inch long strips out of each fold and tied 6 knots to hold the ends together. The scarf took 15 minutes start to finish. It should look something like this.

The amount of fabric left over was the perfect length for a toddler scarf and my daughter looooves scarfs! 

She won't let me take it off of her :)

I'll blog about the crafts I made for the party after Sunday :). Happy crafting y'all!

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Old Fashioned Pancake Recipe

Mmmmm I love pancakes! Growing up, my dad made a big pancake breakfast twice a month. We would have eggs, sausage, and fluffy-crispyedged-yummy-pancakes. Naturally now that I have a family of my own, I'd like to make pancakes for them too. 

When my husband and I married, I knew it was time my dad would finally teach me his recipe. No such luck! Apparently it's a dad thing and since we didn't have kids and I wasn't a dude (still not a dude lol), I was doomed to never know his secret. Over the years I have tried many a recipe and they all seem to fall short, until now. Now my pancakes are not like my dad's but they are delicious :)

So here we go...

Old Fashioned Pancakes

1 1/2 C flour

1 tbs baking powder

1/4 C sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4 C oil +extra for griddle

2 eggs 

1 C milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine dry ingredients and set aside.

Whisk wet ingredients and stir in dry.

Heat griddle to 350F and and brush with a small amount of oil. You can use cooking spray but you won't get those crispy edges that everyone fights over :).

Pour the batter and cook until top is bubbling and edges are golden. Then flip and cook an additional 2 minutes. 

I also make 2 inch mini cakes for the little ones in the house. 

This recipe is small-ish and only makes about 8 med-large pancakes. It can be doubled and sometimes I'll do that and freeze the leftovers for later in the week.

Mmmm I usually only make these once a month and we all looki for to pancake day :)

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Homemade Flour Tortilla Recipe

Today the hubby was jonesing for a quesadilla. We have been out of tortillas since Saturday and I wasn't eager to leave the house. Eric was all like, "babe, you could make them" and so my search began for a recipe. I ended up combining two recipes to create a small recipe for flour tortillas.

Delicious Flour Tortillas from Scratch

You'll need:

2 cups flour

1 Tbs shortening

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup hot water

Combine all ingredients but the water. Add in water and using the hook attachment on your mixer and allow to mix on medium speed for 3-5 minutes. Heat a dry cast iron skillet to med-high heat. Roll out 8 tortillas on a floured surface. Cook tortillas in dry pan for 20 seconds on each side. Place each completed tortilla between two damp towels. Lastly, try not to eat them all yourself.

Sorry about the messy photo, the hubby was chowing down before I got a good picture. Total cost for 8 tortillas: $0.14. Knowing that it's better than anything store bought, priceless. I love nap time!

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Tech Free Tuesday

That's right, we do it! We power down on the occassional Tuesday. We only allow electric for the furnace to start & the electric stove in the winter. We use candles for light, games & books for entertainment, and unless it's yucky out, we cook outside on the grill or open flame. Not only is it a fun way to spend time as a family but we reduce our electric consumption by 1/7 that week. 

My daughter is only 19 months old so she doesn't get it yet but we have fun with it. I'd post a picture of our tech free Tuesday but well... No cameras allowed ;)

Does your family participate in tech free Tuesday or Meatless Monday? 

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Stay At Home Mom - Going Green

When did you start? What does it mean? Sustainable living? How do the Bakers do it? 

My husband and I have slowly been heading down a greener path. To be perfectly honest, the idea began as a joke. My husband Eric likes to think & talk about a zombie apocalypse or end of the world as we know it. It's a guy thing I think. He thinks up different scenarios and comes up with ways to overcome the end of the world situations. I laugh it off and go about my day. Then he started getting interested in square footage gardening. He looked into all the ways to grow a ton of food in a small space. Again, I tend to laugh these wild ideas off and go about my day. The funny thing is, some of his wild ideas must have stuck because we revisited these ideas and have been slowly making them a reality. It all started with buying our home on an acre in the suburbs.

Going green for us has meant eating as organically as we can and managing to create our own food source through raising animals and gardening. We are water conscious as well and Eric has drawn up plans to use a rainwater catchment system to not only water the garden but also to flush the basement toilet. 

Our garden this year was the test drive and next year will be a big job with hopefully an equally big return. We have 4 laying hens (Cinnamon, Mrs. Weasley, Alice, and Nugget) and next spring we will be expanding our flock. Caring for the hens and eating our organic free-range eggs has been extremely gratifying. Believe it or not, caring for the hens has been my favorite job around the house. They are even starting to like me. ;)

We have room to pasture one small dairy cow (BettyLou, yes our future cow has a name) but we don't have the funds to fence the pasture yet or sow the pasture grass.

I bake my family's bread, churn our butter, can soups and stews, make jam, make cheese, and make soap. We have a lot to learn still but we have come a long way! I have talked about it before but not having cable has been vital to our more sustainable life. TV sucked up so much of our time and we are happy to be rid of it. 

What steps have you taken to go green or live more simply?

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