She Likes It! She Really Likes It!

Let me tell you something about eating whole, unprocessed foods. After the initial withdrawal from sugar, flour, and other crap....and the massive headaches it brings....food starts to taste different. Everything is suddenly DELICIOUS!

Honestly, in all of my years of eating and dieting I think that I have never had this experience. It is almost as if the processed food dulled my senses. Even things that I thought I had previously hated are now favorites of mine. Something as simple as carrots roasted in the oven suddenly tastes like candy! It is blowing my mind.

One of the vegetables that never seemed to make it to my plate was eggplant. The texture and weird little seeds always grossed me out. Of course when it was covered in egg and bread crumbs and fried I managed to choke some down, but otherwise I avoided it like the plague. 

When I was searching for 17 Day Diet-friendly recipes I came across one that had people raving...and it was eggplant based. I figured since I had already been able to change my mind about cooked carrots (love those roasted suckers) and cauliflower (wait until I tell you about this miraculous vegetable!) I could try eggplant again.

The first thing I did was peel that sucker, even though the recipe did not suggest it. I may be able to change my mind about eggplant...but I won't change it about the skin. Yuck. Not a fan.

All I had to do was cut it into rounds and bake it on a sheet pan sprayed with PAM. That was it. Oy. Where's the egg?  The breadcrumbs? The hot oil that always splattered all over me? How was I going to manage this?? Plain eggplant sprayed with PAM? Eww.

So, I baked up the eggplant rounds and then browned the ground turkey. I added the tomato sauce, and then got ready to layer them with some fat free mozzarella....another food I thought I would never be caught eating. Alternated the eggplant with the turkey sauce and cheese, then baked for about thirty minutes.

And wouldn't you know it? It was FAAABULOUS!

Try it! Who knows? You may learn to like something new!

Healthy Eggplant Turkey Parmesan (17 DD Cycle 1 Friendly)