schnitzel with noodles

I never thought that this particular item on Maria's list of favorite things sounded very enticing, but I tried it last night for the first time, and it was DELICIOUS! We like to try and make a nice dinner together every month on the 4th for our "anniversary", but since we have plans for tonight we decided to celebrate a night early and make a nice meal last night.

For my schnitzel with noodles, I made baked eggplant and portobello mushrooms over linguine, with mozzarella cheese melted over the top and drizzled with a garlic lemon butter sauce. YUMMMM!

I love eggplant, but every time I've tried to cook it, it's been a disaster. It always turns into a sloppy pile of baked, fried or roasted mush. I could never get it flavorful and crispy like it is in restaurants. Finally I found a tip online through the magic of Google that made all the difference in the world. I sliced it up the way I wanted it and coated each side of each slice in salt, then left it for about 45 minutes. When I came back, the plate that had been totally dry now had about a 1/3 inch of water standing in it! I was so fascinated that I felt compelled to do a photo shoot with the plate. I rinsed the salt off the slices and patted them dry, and it didn't end up adding to the overall saltiness of the dish one bit ... I just didn't add any salt to anything else in the cooking process.



Then I dipped the eggplant slices..


.. and the GIANT portobello mushroom tops in a mixture of soy milk (I quit drinking regular milk about 2 and a half years ago, but I still eat other dairy products) and egg, and then coated them in Italian-flavored breadcrumbs.


While those were baking, Mr. F made us some linguine, and I got to work on the sauce. It was so easy! You just cook few tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan until it starts to brown, then add minced garlic and parsley. Let it cook for a minute or two, then add the lemon juice as it begins to cool down.
Unfortunately it wasn't until after I had done the little photo shoot of the finished product that you see at the top of this post that I realized I had forgotten to melt the mozzarella on top. I had to take the eggplant and mushrooms and put them back in the oven for a minute or two with the cheese on top, but you get the idea:)