The Coupon Clipper - Eggplant

The Coupon Clipper scours the specials for the best deals in New York's big grocery stores.
We jumped a little too whole-heartily into grilling season. While were finding great deals on all kinds of meats, we momentarily forgot about our veggies. So after passing by another page filled with fine specials on meat, we turned to the produce section. While we wanted some veggies, we still needed some heft, and that led us to some brightly colored eggplants. Pathmark had them for $1.29 a pound, but the winner was the Met, which had them for a cool 99 cents a pound.

This oversized fruit (no really!) has been used for ages as a meat substitute, and that’s something we could feel comfortable about indulging in. Though you’ll have to call it something different in nearly every single country you visit. It’s an aubergine in England, an eggfruit in Austrailia, and a garden egg in West Africa.

Whatever you call it, it’s not very good raw, so you'll definitely need to give it some heat to unlock its goodness. Eggplant Parmesan is an obvious but perfectly acceptable choice. Baba Ghanouj is harder. Baccala -that's salted cod- and Eggplant is a little weirder. Another great option, and one that can help you clear out some leftovers, is to make baked stuffed eggplant.

Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise. Score the inside of the eggplant with a knife, staying about 1/2 inch away from the skin at all times, and scoop out the insides with a spoon. Salt the inside of the eggplant and lay it down on a paper towel for about 15-30 minutes to get rid of some of the excess water. The filling can be anything you’d like. We sweated some onion, garlic, and mushrooms and then added all that eggplant filling that had been scooped out before. Then we cooked that for 10 minutes until very soft. We spooned that into the eggplant halves and tossed it in the oven for 30 minutes. Finally, we topped with some goat cheese.