Oatmeal stuffed eggplant

I haven't posted in a long time, which I apologize for, I know you've been waiting for these recipes!
Unfortunately sometimes life surprises us with "lemon" instead of "honey" and it's a good cook's job to turn it into an awesome lemon pie :-)
It took me some time to do that, but now I'm here with many, many new things that I want to post in the next couple of days.
I am starting with one recipe that I came up with recently for a couple of vegetarian friends that were visiting!.


Oatmeal stuffed eggplant ( serves 8 people)


4 medium size eggplants
1 cup oatmeal
2 diced scallions
1 cup brown rice
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup diced mushrooms
3 cloves garlic( diced)
dill
salt
black pepper
red (hot) pepper
4 cups of water
5 tablespoons olive oil

1. Preheat the oven at 375F. Cut the eggplant lengthwise so you would get two equal in size halves.
Take the inside of each half of eggplant out and sprinkle with some salt on top. You can see on the picture( right) how does the eggplants look when cleaned from the inside part( a bit like a boat :-) ). Leave the cleaned eggplants aside for 15 minutes.

2. Dice the scallions, garlic and mushrooms. Sprinkle the olive oil over preheated pan, add the diced vegetables. When the scallions are golden-brown in color, wash the brown rice with hot running water and add it in the pan.

3.Add the chopped dill, salt, black and red pepper. Stir thoroughly. Add the oatmeal and 3 1/2 cups of water. Let it simmer until the rice is almost cooked.



 4. Wash the eggplants from the salt. With a tablespoon fill each of them with the mixture and place them in a cooking pan ( you can see on the picture left the eggplants) then fill in the pan with the remaining 1/2 cup of water and cover it with aluminum foil.

5. Bake 40 minutes, then remove the aluminum foil and bake another 20 minutes. Take the pan out and sprinkle some mozzarella on top of each eggplant. Bake another couple of minutes until the mozzarella melts.


6. Serve it hot with white garlic sauce, green salad and cherry tomatoes.

Eat with good friends and drink hot red wine :-) 

Enjoy!