Chicken and Eggplant

Okay, so I didn't add the Cinco de Mayo entry I promised but I'll tell you what we had: Chicken nachos and Corona. Pretty simple and yummy basic nachos, ground chicken, beans, cheese and salsa - I'll put together a full recipe at a later date.

Now for last night's dinner. Eggplants are coming into season and I decided to try the graffiti eggplant. I'm kind of an amateur at cooking eggplant but decided to try the sweat method and think it came out quite delicious. So here we go.

Baked chicken and eggplant

2 medium eggplants, cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch thick slices
Kosher salt
1 tbsp olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp black pepper
1 clove crushed garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
1/4 cup water
1 tsp oregano
6 oz pasta of your choice (we used rotini)
Parmesean cheese to taste

To sweat the eggplant place on paper towels or your cooling rack and sprinkle with kosher salt. Let sit for about 30 minutes and then rinse and dry in paper towels. While the eggplant is sweating you can also marinate your chicken or if you'd like you can marinate it ahead of time, the longer you marinate the more tender and tasty it will be. Place chicken pieces in a ziplock with lemon, vinegar, pepper and garlic and refrigerate.

Preheat oven to 400 and heat olive oil on medium heat in a nonstick pan. Add eggplant to pan and cook until golden brown on both sides. Let drain on paper towel. Add chicken and onions to pan and let cook for about 5 minutes until onions start to get soft. Add tomato paste and water and cover on low for 10 minutes.

Place the eggplant in the bottom of a square baking dish coated with non-stick spray then the chicken mixture on top of that. Sprinkle with oregano, cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.

While the chicken and eggplant are baking you can boil up your pasta. Pour chicken and eggplant over pasta, sprinkle with parmesean cheese and enjoy!