primal/paleo stuffed eggplant {recipe}

My boyfriend and I picked up some eggplant and grass fed beef at our local farmer's market this past weekend, so we decided to experiment in the kitchen and come up with our own primal/paleo dinner entree.  

Besides the eggplant and beef, we just used whatever we could scrounge up around the apartment...which isn't much being that we are poor college kids ;)

Primal/Paleo Stuffed Eggplant

ingredients: 

(makes 3-4 servings)

2 large eggplants (we used 4 small instead)

1/2 lb of grass fed ground beef

4 strips of bacon

1 jar of salsa (you know the rules, no corn syrup, corn, etc.)

1 teaspoon of garlic 

1 teaspoon or crushed red pepper flakes

salt and pepper (to taste)

Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brown the ground beef in a skillet. In a separate skillet, cook the bacon strips. 

2. While the meat is cooking, cut each eggplant in half and scoop out the middle of the eggplant, leaving  about a 1/4 of an inch of the eggplant on the skin. Set aside the middle part of the eggplant.

3. Remove the bacon from the skillet and set aside.  Chop up the middle part of the eggplant and cook it in the bacon fat left in the skillet.

4. Once the eggplant is tender, combine with the browned ground beef.  Crumble up the bacon strips and add them as well. Add half the jar of salsa, garlic (to taste), crushed red pepper flakes (to taste), and salt and pepper (to taste).  Stir and heat mixture.  

5. Once the filling has been heated, spoon into the eggplant halves.  Place stuffed eggplant into a baking dish (we used a 9X13 glass baking dish because that was all we had).  Pour the rest of the jar of salsa over and under the stuffed eggplant (we did this just to add some more moisture so the eggplant wouldn't dry out) and sprinkle with some cheese (this is optional, not everybody following the primal/paleo lifestyle includes cheese in their diet).

6. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the eggplant is tender.

7. ENJOY :)

We just used what we had on hand, but you could easily alter the recipe to add other vegetables into the filling such as onions, bell peppers or broccoli.