And of course, I can’t resist topping the whole thing with big leaves of basil from our garden once it’s out of the oven! Finally, I layer them with the homemade marinara sauce and slices of fresh mozzarella. Instead of frying the breaded eggplant slices, I bake them until nicely crisp and golden brown. Then, for fresh, herbaceous flavor, I add generous pinches of oregano and thyme to the eggplant’s Parmesan and panko coating. Just like my mom, I make my own marinara sauce by simmering crushed tomatoes over my Wolf cooktop for about 20 minutes. It’s a delicious, lighter ode to my mom’s classic recipe. Because eggplant’s in peak season, I thought it was the perfect time to develop an eggplant Parmesan recipe of my own. When Sub Zero, Wolf, and Cove asked me what living deliciously means to me, my mom’s eggplant Parmesan and those warm summer family memories immediately came to mind.

The amazing waft of saucy, cheesy goodness coming out of the oven was something to really get excited about… even if it meant coming in and savoring it for a few extra minutes before heading back out to play. That is, unless the meal she was cooking was eggplant Parmesan. When my mom called us in for dinner, we rushed in and ate as fast as we could so that we could get back outside to play. We had to keep lookout for the ice cream man, hold swing set jumping contests, and run relays in our jelly shoes. Then, my sister and I had more important matters at hand. Dinnertime was a sound routine for all of us… unless it was summer. Tomato sauce never came from a jar, and cheese was never pre-shredded because convenience foods like that were simply not worth the extra expense. My family ate dinner together every night, and my mom always cooked it from scratch. Growing up, my mom’s eggplant Parmesan recipe was one of my favorite things to eat.

Halfbaked harvest lasagna soup