Eggplant Parmesan Budget Style

Cooking — By GroceryQueen on October 22, 2011 6:06 pm

 

I haven’t had an eggplant Parmesan in a while now.  My husband absolutely loves eggplants, that is something he grew up with, so this will be a great surprise for the family.

My younger ones, on the other hand, are not too crazy of the notion that they will have to eat purple plant, but I am going to trick them.  I know it sound really bad, but if I tell them that it is not there they gobble it all up!  That figures right?

I bought a large eggplant at HyVee for $1.78 a pieces (usually it is sold by the pound) so it was a great find!

I already peeled the skin off yesterday night (because I personally think it has a very bitter and unpleasant taste to it), and sliced them up to get dehydrated over night with salt.

I have discovered that cooking undehydrated eggplant makes mush, and tend to use more oil.

One eggplant allowed me to slice up 15 pieces; which I will use 1/2 for dinner and the other 1/2 for my stew recipe in future date.

Other important ingredient I will be using is one hamburger patty for the spaghetti sauce.  I purchased 12 patties (in a pack) at Sams club for $8.00 … making each patty about $0.67 a piece.

Total tally of all ingredients and costs:

ONE (1) eggplant … $1.78

ONE (1) beef patty … $0.67

ONE (1) box of spaghetti pasta … FREE ($0.49 mega sale pasta came free with my coupons)

ONE (1) jar of spaghetti sauce … $1.29

 

Staple Ingredients:

Parmesan cheese

Mozzarella Cheese

Italian Herbes

Fresh Basil (from my garden)

Bread crumbs (homemade from leftover Italian/french bread broken up into a food processor)

TWO large eggs

 

Total cost: $3.74

 

You can’t go anywhere, especially a Italian restaurant, and pay ONLY $3.74 for Eggplant Parmesan!

 

Tags: Budge, recipe