Pasta with sun dried tomato pesto zucchini and mushroom

hen it comes to eating her dinner, there is only a very few combinations that my 3 year old princess will eat without any fuss. Among those few, the combination of pasta, mushrooms and ketchup tops her charts. She will eat this without having to remind her over and over to pick up the fork. Let me also tell you that she has a very sophisticated palate :) and doesn't like anything that is make 'kids style'. Believe me or not, she prefers the spicy Haldiram bhujia over MacDonald's fries (yes that's right)... her pasta needs to have spices and veggies... you get the idea. Here's a recipe for a pasta dish that I had made once when I had guests over. The guests loved it and to our pleasant surprise, our little one gobbled the leftovers up.
So without any further ado, especially for all you moms out there, here is the recipe.

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Eggplant Parmesan

I got introduced to this well known Italian delicacy a few years ago by my dear hubby during our post-engagement and pre-marriage long distance phone conversations :-) Him being a vegetarian.. living here in the US, he used to search for vegetarian food, everywhere. He used to survive on salad and baked potatoes :-( Then one day while in costco he found a packet of this in the frozen section, tried it and loved it. It was a double bonus for him as first it was vegetarian of course but the best part was it consisted eggplant which he is addicted to. One day during our chit chat I asked him what he had for dinner and he said baingan and cheese... and I went eww..!! :-)

Then after coming here one day he made these (frozen one) for dinner... and I liked it. It was different but good. To impress him I tried making it at home and it was a disaster.. runny sauce, raw eggplants and rubbery cheese. You name it everything went wrong. I promised to myself to never attempt making this again... ever. But then never say never and I tried again and again till I got to this recipe, and now he says this is one of the best he has eaten.

I cannot say this is the authentic recipe but this my version, a healthier and easy way. Instead of deep frying the eggplants, I bake them in the oven and use store bought or home made marinara sauce (see notes) for the sauce. Do give it a try and let me know how it came out. Here's what you need.

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