Baked eggplant

I'm back! I took a trip up north, spent quite a bit of time cooking at my sister in law's (basic stuff like green bean casserole and sweet potato crunch. I didn't share the recipe because, well, it's.. one is super easy and pointless to post, and the other is a recipe in the family and I'm not sure how happy they'd be if it went public.)

Considering it's a new year, I refuse to cook things that you know will turn out tasting like dirt. There are just things I like and things I don't and there's not much one's going to do to it to change my mind. On that note, I don't want to eat a lot of fried foods, red meats or things heavy in fatty oils -- like Crisco, margerine; I'm avoiding vegetable oil due to some finds I've come across. Logically speaking I'd post a link to that, but I can't find it right now.
So I'm making a vegetarian meal that sounds like it should actually be tasty.


Serves 4.
Cook time: assumedly 25-30 minutes.

Ingredients

4 eggplants, cut in half (I'm using two, because the store had three)
1 tb coarse sea salt
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 thinly sliced onions
1 cup olive oil
1 tb freshly chopped parsely (guess who's using dried..)
2 large firm ripe tomatoes, chopped

Short version: stab the eggplant, leave it sit for an hour, cook the rest, cook the eggplant, put everything together and bake it.

Long version:
Make several deep cuts in the tops of the eggplants. Place in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Let drain for an hour. (Note: if you're going to cook rice on the side, or anything where the juice would be possibly included in the food while you're preparing, this would be good to use. The food would absorb any lost nutrients due to draining. I've been calling it the collard-green theory, because southerners often dab up the juice with corn bread).

Preheat the oven to 350.

Saute the garlic and onions in 2 tb of oil in a large pan over medium heat until browned. Season with salt, if desired. Add the tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes.

Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan until very hot. Fry the eggplants until the flesh is softened, about 10-15 minutes. Note: you can do this on lower heat, which would avoid destroying the chemical compounds found in the oil and the fruit. This is one reason why frying is generally bad.

Place the eggplants in a baking dish and fill with the onion mixture. Bake until tender -- roughly a half hour.

Sprinkle with the parsley and serve hot.

Considering I have more onion and tomato than eggplant, and I'm not really keen on frying it, I'm probably going to drain the eggplant after cutting it into strips. I'll saute like it says, but instead of frying the eggplant, I'll likely bake it for 10-20 minutes (which I can do while sauteing the other stuff) and then put it all together. This saves me from washing an extra pan, using up a lot of olive oil, and destroying good nutrients from the extra cooking process. I can't see how it would taste much differently, and having extra tomatoes -- therefore extra juice -- I'm not too scared of it drying out on me.


I may add a few potatoes, since, for one, I have a lot of potatoes; for another, I have company coming over; and for a third, I have a love for potatoes. Woo!

Wish me luck!