Eat Lean, Green and Clean with these Stuffed Aubergines 🍆

TheDairyFreeFactory

Weekend night meals can get monotonous can’t they? Also its good for us not to have meat/meat substitutes every night and for once why don’t we let veggies take the centre stage? 

And out of all of the veggie chorus that often stay on the periphery of our meals I think you will find this little back up dancer transitions rather nicely into the starring role. Not only are they a large, meaty type vegetable but they soak up flavours whilst retaining their own subtle taste. 

I think I said to before but the more colourful your plate of food – the better you are eating (no this does not include Lucky Charm Rainbow coloured cereal) but you can’t get much more colourful than the deep purple of aubergine. But why does more colour = more nutrition? Nutrients in food often present themselves via colour so more colour means the food has more nutrients.

The amazing deep purple colour of aubergine skin comes from the antioxidant Nasunin. Studies linked to this phytonutrient have shown that it protects cell membranes from damage and in particular brain cell membranes. Cell membranes control what comes in and what goes out of the cell this is extremely important in terms of protecting our cells from foreign bodies and particularly free radicals which have the potential to take over the cell and lead to cancer.

You will need:


(Makes 2) 

  • 1 Aubergine (eggplant) 
  • 2 cups of diced portobello mushrooms
  • 1/2 cup of chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup chopped red pepper 
  • 1/2 cup chopped yellow pepper 
  • 1 red onion
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 1/2 cup of ground cashew nuts
  • 1 tsp of paprika 
  • 1 1/2 tsp of rubbed sweet basil
  • 1 1/2 tsp of garlic granules 

Method:

  • Cut your Aubergine in half and carve out the middles. Leave about 1cm thickness around the edges. Then chop into small cubes
  • Add this to all of your other chopped veggies and put them all in a roasting tin along with olive oil, the garlic, paprika and sweet basil
  • Roast all your veggies in the oven for about 1hr until they are roasted gooooood but still juicy. Make sure you check back every 15 mins or so and give a good mix up
  • Pour the tin of chopped tomatoes into the roasted veg then scoop the roasted veg mixture into the hollowed out aubergines halves 
  • Place in the oven at 175 for around 1hr. In the final ten minutes of baking mix together the garlic granules and the ground cashews and then sprinkle on top of the aubergines to create the crumb. DIVINE.
  • Increase the oven temp to 185 to get them niiiiiice and crispy! Enjoy 😋


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