Eggplant roll ups with cashew ricotta

Amazing stuffed squash blossoms.

Several factors played into the creation of this recipe.   First, I got an eggplant in my Relayfoods.com box this week which made two eggplants in the house that needed cooking.  Second, I had cashew ricotta 'cheese' left over from my stuffed squash blossoms experiment (which turned out amazing!). And third, I had made homemade tomato sauce in the fridge that needed to be used.  I browsed my Pinterest 'Primal Eats' board as well as searched for new and exciting recipes using eggplant.  After several hours of reading many various eggplant Parmesan recipes I decided to just use what I had on hand (the above list) and just come up with my own thing.   The birth of eggplant roll-ups with cashew ricotta.

Sweating out the Eggplant

I used my mandolin to slice the eggplant then I salted down each slice and let them sweat in a colander for about an hour.  I never used to do this step but I had read in so many recipes that this step is important if you don't want soupy eggplant dishes.  After the eggplant sat I sorta just pushed down on the eggplant to get as much water out as I could.  I ended up doing this process twice because I realized I had to rinse off all the salt otherwise we'd all be heading to the hospital to have our hearts checked. 

The next step was probably the most time consuming.  I used olive oil to fry up each slice.  I had a lot of slices!  I ended up using both of my fry pans so I could cook about 8 slices at a time.  As a side note, the slices cooked in my cast iron skillet had a much nicer golden crust than the ones fried in the non-stick skillet.  After all the slices were fried I set them aside to cool while I mixed up the filling that I was going to load into these bad boys.  When my mom used to make lasagna she used to add all sorts of yummy flavors into the ricotta cheese mixture so I loosely followed what I remember her doing.  She was a 'dump and pour' cook so there was never any written recipes anywhere. It always astonished me that she could whip of a batch of (insert food item here) without ever following a recipe!

I put about 2 cups of my homemade tomato sauce in the bottom of a Pyrex baking dish and got ready to roll each eggplant slice! This part went fairly quickly.  I didn't measure out exactly how much I put into each roll but by looking at the picture I'd say the dollop of awesomeness was about a tablespoon.  I ended up running out of filling before I ran out of eggplant.  I didn't have that much left and they were the smaller more narrower slices AND the pan was full so I threw the rest away.  Gasp!!  I know.  There was a land of possibilities unexplored with the last few slices of eggplant but frankly, I didn't want to have to worry about it. So now I have these bad boys rolled up and I had one final brilliant idea...heavy cream!!  I had just picked up some fresh, raw heavy cream and had read it in some recipe somewhere to top each each roll up with a spoon of cream.  Oh yes!  I did that!  After they were cooked I think the cream added a level of creaminess to the dish.  Definitely keeping that move for next time.  I sprinkled them all with some Parmesan cheese flakes and threw them in the oven for about 30 minutes.  Viola!  Rich, filling delicious eggplant roll ups!

Before the oven.

The Recipe
For the filling:
1 1/2 cup cashew ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic
1 Tbl fresh minced basil
1 tsp salt
1 egg
pepper to taste

2 eggplants sliced about 1/4 inch thick, salted and sweated, rinsed and fried in olive oil
2 cups tomato sauce

Use about 1 Tbl of filling for each eggplant roll-up, then roll and place on top of sauce.  Once everything is rolled, spoon about a teaspoon of cream over each roll.  Top with additional Parmesan cheese.  Cook at 350 for 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. 

Enjoy the rich deliciousness!

On our finest china!  LOL