I love bacon, but I don’t like eating meat. I love the salty, smoky flavor bacon can give a sandwich or a salad. Given this, I got really excited when I saw this recipe for eggplant bacon. I like eggplant, I like smoky, I like to experiment in the kitchen, so let’s try it.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with the bacon once I made it, but I knew I would come up with something. I borrowed mom’s mandolin and Bob sliced the eggplant very thin for me. The fist baking went ok – but I have to remember to only use one rack in the oven at a time. The marinade was easy to make and the eggplant strips looked so good waiting to go in the oven.

My first sheet, I way over cooked. The recipe called for a 350 degree oven and about twelve minutes. By 8 minutes my eggplant was charred, so I reduced my oven temp to 325 and kept the next sheet in for five minutes. This worked well. Really well.

I’m also a sucker for a good tomato mozzarella sandwich. I love the combination and decided – why not add bacon? I had some bread from lunch Saturay and I toasted those and then added a little pesto, the eggplant bacon, mozzarella, and tomato. I did begin to add some cabbage, but ended up ditching that – it just didn’t add anything. The result – fantastic. The eggplant actually added something really delicious to the sandwich and it satisfied the minor bacon craving without requiring that I eat meat. This is a definite do again, but I have to be cautious with the slices and the cooking time.

I also have a cute picture of Leia and Tigger. They do like to curl up together and I think it’s just adorable.