Vegetarian gluten free eggplant pizza recipe – kids friendly

My kids simply adore pasta and pizza, maybe it’s the Italian dna 😉 In order to offer them a nice and balanced diet I try to give them either pasta or pizza once a day, preferably at lunch. Sometimes it happens that my little Luca, even if he had his daily dose of pasta at lunch asks me pizza again for dinner. That’s when I try to accomodate his food requests and my balanced diet wishes at the same time thinking outside the box. That’s how the eggplant pizza was born.  The final result is so tasty and light that the whole family enjoys this alternative kind of pizza!!

This is all you will need for 4 people:

Procedure:

– wash and peel the eggplants. You can always leave the peel, but as I’m cooking for kids I noticed that they really enjoy eggplants without any complaint if they are without peel.

– slice the eggplant on the length in thick slices, 1 inch thick.

– place the slices on a paper towel in a baking sheet, one next to the other. Sprinkle some salt on top and place them apart for 20 minutes. The salt will let the eggplant release some extra water that the paper towel will absorb.

– After 20 minutes gently pat the slices with some paper towel to dry them out from the extra water and the salt

– Remove the paper towel and substitute it with some parchment paper. Place the eggplant slices one next to the other on the parchment paper. Place few tablespoons of Extra virgin oil of olive in a cup and with a pastry brush gently brush the surface of each slice on one side only.

– Sprinkle the slices with some oregano, either dry or fresh. Bake the eggplant slices in the preheated oven at 400 F for 25 minutes.

 

– While the eggplants are cooking we can prepare the fresh tomato sauce. You can use a good quality store bought one…but the homemade has a totally different taste 😉  I used sweet cherry tomatoes in season from the farmers’ market. so sweet that it seems they put some sugar inside!

Chop the tomatoes in pieces.

– in a medium frying pan add two tablespoons of extra virgin oil of olive and two cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped in half. Turn the heat on at medium and let the oil get warm for 30 seconds.

– add the tomatoes, adjust with salt, stir and let it cook at medium for 10/12 minutes, stirring occasionally.

– the tomatoes will soften and release all their juice creating a nice and inviting cream

– the tomato sauce and the eggplants should be ready at the same time. It’s time to assemble our pizza.

– Remove the eggplant slices from the oven and let them cool down for 5 minutes. Do NOT switch the oven off. Spread a generous tablespoon of tomato sauce on top of every slice.

– Place some slices of fresh mozzarella on top

– add a teaspoon of grated parmesan cheese

– decorate with few leaves of basil and a drizzle of extra virgin oil of olive

– place the eggplant pizzas back in the oven for 8 minutes in broil mode to let the cheese melt and form a lovely golden crust.

Enjoy!!!