eggplant pizza recipe.

i love pizza. i mean i really, really love pizza. when we moved to california the first job james got was at a brand new pizza parlor that opened up near my moms house. and even though the pay, hours, and management were all terrible, i secretly loved that job because it came with unlimited free pizza. i probably ate pizza three or more days a week while he worked there and i am not embarrassed about it at all. 

anyways, homemade pizza used to be on our regular dinner rotation, its really cheap (if you make your own dough), acceptably healthy (as long as you use real ingredients), and everyone loves it. except now i have celiac disease and we can never have pizza as a family again. unless i buy a nine dollar frozen pizza or a seven dollar bag of pizza dough mix, both of which are probably never going to happen.

so i was really, really depressed about not being able to eat pizza. really depressed. like, trying to figure out how bad it would be if i ate an entire real pizza just once a year, i mean, it couldnt be that bad for me right? but then i saw a picture somewhere on the internet of eggplant pizzas and thought this could really work. eggplants are WAY cheaper than gluten free pizza dough (i got them for 88 cents each at sprouts), and theres no way this could taste bad, since its mostly the same ingredients as eggplant parmesan and ratatouille, which are both delicious. since i didnt remember where i saw the picture, i checked allrecipes.com for "eggplant pizza" and apparently this is a real thing. 

i tried it last week, and it was great. so great, in fact, that i bought more eggplant so we could have it again tonight (in case you missed it, i do my meal plans weekly). i had to modify the recipes i found a bit since most of them breaded the eggplant, so heres what i did:

eggplant pizzas:
(serves 2-4)

ingredients:
2 large eggplants 
olive oil
lemon pepper
1/2 cup or so of pasta sauce
1 cup or so of mozzarella or cheese of your fancy
pepperoni or whatever toppings your heart desires

preheat oven to 400 degrees. start by slicing your eggplant into patties at least 1/2 inch thick (i made the mistake of cutting mine to thin last time because i didnt know they would shrink so much and they ended up falling apart a little), then brown both sides in a cast iron pan in a little olive oil and lemon pepper. arrange your slices on a cookie sheet lined with foil and top each slice with sauce, cheese, and toppings (no exact measurements here, just whatever you feel like). bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned (i like to leave mine in for a little longer so the cheese gets nice and crispy, but thats just me). serve immediately. 

(i served ours with a sad little crouton-less caesar salad):

and thats it! making pizza this way is actually significantly faster (and if your watching carbs, healthier) than regular pizza, and i think i can confidently put pizza back on our dinner rotation. 

so what are you having for dinner tonight?