Sausage-Stuffed Eggplant

We just love eggplant and I like to fix them stuffed once in awhile.  Tonight I’m using pork breakfast sausage as the meat, rather than my usual seafood treatment of this wonderful vegetable.  This is a delicious, filling recipe that provides some impressive nuritional needs.  I usually serve this with a tossed green salad.  This dish is suitable for Induction provided you use an Induction-suitable  bread for the bread crumbs. It is great for Keto followers as well.  It is not suitable for Primal-Paleo as-written, but could be with minor tweaking (use coconut milk for the cream; use a plan-suitable bread)

INGREDIENTS:

1  10-oz eggplant

1 slice bacon, finely chopped

8 oz. pork bulk sausage (preferably homemade), crumbled (or Italian sausage)

2 oz. onion, chopped

2 oz. red bell pepper, chopped

½ c. parsley, chopped

1 slice my Gluten-Free Focaccia Bread, crumbled

¼ c. heavy cream

1/8 tsp. your favorite spice blend for pork

1 large egg, beaten with the heavy cream above

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat oven to 350º.  Cut stem off eggplant and cut in half lengthwise.  Carefully remove the flesh with a knifef, leaving ¼” on the skin to support the filling.  Chop the eggplant into ½” dice.  Brown bacon in non-stick skillet.  Add sausage, crumbling with your spoon as it cooks. Add onion, eggplant, red pepper, parsley and spice blend you have chosen to use.  Cook until vegetables are tender. Turn off heat.  Crumbled slice of bread into the pan, Add the cream/egg mixture and stirl all together well. Fill each half of the eggplant with 1/2 of the filling. Press it down slightly with your spoon or hands.  Place filled eggplant halves into a baking pan filled with ¼” water.  Pop pan into oven and bake for about 45 minutes.   The filling should be done and the flesh that was left on the eggplant should be done as well.  Carefully lift them out onto your serving platter using two large cooking spoons.  Serve with a green veggie or tossed salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes two large adult servings, each contains:

737 cals, 61.4g fat, 12.4g carbs, 4.7g fiber, 7.7g NET CARBS, 35g protein, 550 mg sodium, 831 mg potassium, 40% RDA Vitamin A, 44% B6, 92% B12, 80% C, 13% E, 11% calcium, 28% copper, 43% iron, 16% manganese, 64% niacin, 48% phosphorous, 43% riboflavin, 29% selenium, 45% thiamin and 42% zinc

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