I'm Not Martha: Macaroni Pie with Eggplant Crust

This recipe looked and sounded like something Hunny would really like. So I decided to give it a try, even though I'm hardly as fond of eggplant as he is. Ahhh... the things we do for love.  Actually, this really turned out to be a labor of love, since it took a lot more work than I anticipated.

I was disappointed that my finished product didn't look nearly as appetizing as the picture that accompanied the recipe, but maybe I should have expected as much since I got it from the Martha Stuart web site. Obviously, the food stylists did their job well. The eggplant in their photo (bellow, right) doesn't even look browned and you can't see a trace of the breadcrumbs that line the pan. I did "doctor" my finished pie a bit by adding the remaining sauce on top and sprinkling it with parmigiana reggiana, but I felt compelled to do something to dress it up a bit. I mean, theirs looks fine naked, while mine looked .... well, sort of like a chunk of dirt. Sigh.












The good news is, Hunny really liked mine -- except for the fact that I was too heavy-handed with salting the eggplant. I guess it takes less coarse salt to do the job than the regular salt I normally use for bleeding the moisture from eggplant. Live and learn. At least the filling was yummy, even if I couldn't find the caciocavallo cheese that the recipe called for. (I substituted sliced asiago.) Martha would probably smack my hand, but I also used dried basil instead of fresh as instructed. And while I'm making confessions, I may as well admit that the inside of my pie probably looks a bit darker than the Martha one, too, because I used half whole wheat pasta with the regular stuff.  Yeah, I'm a rebel! Look, I'm a native South Carolinian -- it's in my blood!

So, even if my pie didn't turn out as photogenic as I'd hoped, it was good -- if you peeled off most of the salty eggplant. I don't think the eggplant part was worth all the work, really. I'll make this again, but sans the "crust."