As summer nights are beginning to get cooler there's an abundance of vegetables from our garden starting to pile up on our counter. Not that I'm complaining, it leads to fun ways to make easy summer dinners without heating up the inside kitchen. Living in an old large Victorian house dating back to the 1800's you are certain not to have air conditioning and come up with creative ways to keep your house cool on 95 degree days. Yes, modern-day air conditioner units are a beautiful thing but honestly, I am not a fan of them. Living on the river I much rather prefer to have fresh air with my windows open with the smell of the fresh air blowing in.
This summer most of my time has been spent between the kitchen, garden, and on the river porch. If there's any place that I would rather be than outside, it’s OUTSIDE! There's an outdoor kitchen in our garden plans enabling me to be outside even more during the nice months. I have a feeling that I'll be pulling out our outdoor space heater from the garage just to extend my outdoor cooking time. I guarantee that I will be out there in ski pants and my fuzzy Norwegian snow boots cooking up some great winter dish whole taking in the beautiful snowy days.
One of the newest ways that I utilize when trying to keep my inside kitchen cool is the air fryer. This little device was never a kitchen gadget that I would see myself owning and storing in my butler pantry full of kitchen gadget goodies. When I first heard of one I simply couldn't use for it because I automatically thought that I don't fry foods so why the heck would I get one. I prefer cooking with simple, fresh ingredients that don't need to be fried. I related the air fryer to people who still want to eat unhealthy food but are just looking to skimp on a few calories. Kinda like people ordering a double cheeseburger and a Diet Coke at a fast food restaurant. It simply doesn't add up.
So behold two years ago my mother-in-law was looking for a holiday present for us. Searching for a gadget that we didn't already own and hence the air fryer arrived in a nicely wrapped Christmas package. I have to admit that other than a few times when Todd made french fries for the kids it barely was touched outside of frozen food. And it was never touched by myself because it was a completely unknown machine that not only did I have no idea how to operate the dam thing, I thought what besides your typical fried food could you cook in the thing? That's when a 95-degree day with the thought of cooking anything in my kitchen that would cause the kitchen to get warm hit me. The air fryer!! So I worked through my fears of the unknown. First of all, it didn't have the typical temperature range of a normal oven and that perplexed me a bit. Then I wasn't sure how it would work for anything that wasn't frozen prior to it going in. But the stage had already been set! I had been planning all week to cook up some of my eggplant that I had been craving, so this had to happen.
So I took a deep breath, opened the door to the air fryer, and bravely placed four of my freshly breaded eggplant slices in it. I picked a temperature going with the highest it would allow me to choose. Selected my time and hit play! And we were on! I felt like I was using an old fashioned boom box when I hit that play button. I waited nervously, every once in awhile opening the door to see what was going in there. Was it on fire? Was it even cooking? 6 minutes later it was pure magic! My french fry cooker had transformed my eggplant slices into beautiful, perfectly cooked slices of pure yumminess! I was now hooked into thinking what else can I cook in this sucker! Now my relationship with the air fryer was a healthy and happy one with the help of a little bit of eggplant from the garden and my mother in law. Thanks Barbara! Our air fryer has earned it place of respect in our butler pantry.
Air Fryer Eggplant Stacks With Creamy Basil Dressing
Makes: 8 stacks
Serves 4 as a meal, 8 as an appetizer
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Pairs With: Pino Grigio
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup red currant tomatoes (see our plants)
2 large balls fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced into 1/2” slices
2 eggplants, sliced into 1/2” slices
1 cup seasoned panko breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon dried basil
2 eggs, beaten
olive oil
salt
RECIPE:
Place eggplant slices into a colander in the sink. Lightly salt slices and allow excess moisture to be removed for 30 minutes. Remove and pat dry.
Place beaten eggs in a shallow dish. Season with salt & pepper.
Place panko breadcrumbs in a separate shallow dish.
Dip eggplant slices into eggs then dip into panko breadcrumb, fully covering both sides. Place on a metal baking tray and repeat until all eggplant slices are covered.
Place breaded eggplant slices into the air fryer. Bake at 400 degrees for 6 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool. (You will need to do these in batches. A standard air fryer will accommodate 4 to 6 slices of eggplant at a time)
Once all eggplant slices are air fried, begin to assemble stacks. Place half of your eggplant slices on a serving platter or appetizer/dinner plate. Place one slice of mozzarella cheese on top of the eggplant slice. Drizzle a small amount of the basil dressing on top of mozzarella. Repeat with each eggplant stack. Take reserved eggplant slices and place an additional slice on each of the eggplant & mozzarella slices on top of each existing stack. Each stack should now have 2 slices of eggplant & of mozzarella.
Top each stack with an additional drizzle of basil dressing and a few red currant tomatoes.
Serve!
Notes: Stacks can be prepared a few hours ahead of time and stored covered in the refrigerator chilled. If you prefer warm stacks keep the eggplant slices on low in the oven at 170 degrees until ready to stack with mozzarella.
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