Last Minute Eggplant Rollatini

I grew up on really good eggplant because my mom makes delicious eggplant parmesan. Needless to say, I love all things eggplant, especially rollatini. However, it's usually a delicacy I enjoy when dining out. I'd never actually made it before, until this weekend, that is, and it was so worth it. The pregnancy cravings are beginning and coupled with the fact that Isabella loves eggplant too led me to embark on an eggplant mission on Saturday night. I don't even know what a recipe for rollatini looks like, but this is what I came up with when dinner had to be on the table within the hour and it was indeed quite delicious.

Doing the coating for the eggplant usually overwhelms me because there are multi-steps, but I found that the key is just to move very quickly!

• Slice outer skin off of eggplant and cut off both top and bottom.
  


• Slice flesh of eggplant lengthwise thinly.



• Dip each piece into flour, then beaten eggs, and lastly whole grain bread crumbs (make crumbs from homemade bread or a quality loaf by pulsing in the food processor).



• (Note: I recently looked at the ingredients list on my bread crumb container and realized that there were close to 100 ingredients, most of which were absolute crap. No future for those crumbs in this house.)



• Fry coated eggplant on both sides in olive oil.



• Once all pieces are fried, prepare filling.



• I used about 3/4 lb ricotta for 10 eggplant pieces.



• Mix ricotta with pecorino romano and parsley and place a heaping tablespoon in center of each piece of fried eggplant.



• Wrap eggplant around filling and place seam side down in a casserole dish already lined with some homemade tomato sauce.



• After placing all filled eggplant pieces in casserole dish, top each piece with sauce and sprinkle with fresh mozzarella.



• Bake in oven at 350 degrees in bubbly. (I would have baked longer to brown the cheese, but my toddler was standing at the oven screaming for eggplant, which she later devoured.)