As is probably the case in many houses, it’s hard to tell what will happen with vegetables in The VeganAsana home. Sometimes, the kids eat them like they have never seen food, and other times the dogs end up with some vegetables or I have a lot of leftovers.
Breading vegetables, while not particularly beneficial to their nutritional value, is one way to increase consumption around here. This past Friday, I made breaded eggplant and they ate every scrap. There wasn’t even a slice of leftover (other than what I froze before cooking – see more below). So, I’m going to call it a success.
Ingredients
2 eggplants (medium to large), sliced thinly
1 sleeves of wheat saltines, blended to a coarse powder (pretzels or will work)
2 cups panko bread crumbs (or increase the crackers)
3 cups flour
4 tsp salt
4 tsp ground pepper
1/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes
4 cups soy milk or rice milk (unsweetened, unflavored)
1/2 cup white vinegar
olive oil
(note – depending on how big your eggplants are, you may need to do a second batch of the wet and dry mixes)
Process
Place soymilk in a shallow bowl and add vinegar. Whisk until the milk thickens. It will smell sort of like buttermilk.
Place dry ingredients in larger shallow bowl and mix well.
Individually, dip slices of eggplant in the milk mix (both sides) and then press firmly into the dry mix (both sides)
Coat a baking sheet with olive oil and place slices in one layer. Bake at 425*. Flip when the bottom begins to brown to cook the second side.
We like them served with fresh marinara. Delicious!
If you want to make extra to freeze for later, you can stop after the breading step, place them in a single layer on a pan in the freezer for 8 hours, and the transfer to a freezer bag. When you are ready for them, just pop them out of the freezer, bake, and enjoy.
