Stuffed Eggplant with Yogurt Dip

Well, it's been awhile since I updated the blog. Needless to say, the craziness of the holiday season has kicked into high gear... and although I'm still trying new recipes, finding the time to put them up on the blog is HARD! Anyways, here is a great one I tried for the first time last week. It came from a recipe book I have called "Cooking with Spice." It's a vegetarian meal, but it's great!

Ingredients:

4 medium eggplant (I only used two and cut all the ingredients below in half)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

1 bunch parsley

5 ripe tomatoes (looking back, I'd just use a can of cooked/diced tomatoes for the inside part)

1 cup cooked rice

1/2 teas ground paprika

cayenne pepper (to taste)

1/4 teas ground cumin (I used more around a full teas of this and the paprika)

1 teas sugar

For the yogurt dip:
2 garlic cloves

1/2 bunch mint (I didn't have mint, so I used cilantro. It was good, but mint would be better.)

1 cup plain yogurt

-Wash and cute eggplant in half lengthwise. Sprinkle with lemon juice and salt and allow to stand for 30 min.

-In pan heat oil, and two at a time, sear the eggplant halves on both sides for about 5 minutes. Allow to drain on paper towels. With a spoon scrape out the pulp, leaving and edge of about 1/4 inch all the way around. Chop the pulp coarsely.

-Peel the onions and garlic and dice finely. Wash the parsley and shake dry, pluck the leaves from the stems and chop finely. If you decide to use tomatoes (instead of canned), cut an x across the top and bottom of 3 tomatoes. Drop them into boiling water for about 1 minute. The skin should come off now. Peel, quarter, seed the tomatoes and dice finely.

-Heat the remaining oil in a pan and cook the onions and garlic in the pan until translucent. ADd the eggplant pulp, the rice, tomatoes, parsley and herbs and cook for about 4 minutes over low heat until done.

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the eggplant shells in a greased casserole dish and fill with the rice-vegetable mixture. Wash the remaining tomatoes and slice finely. Arrange over the eggplant. Bake for 35 min.

For yogurt dip: mix ingrediants together and put on top of eggplant.