Trader Joe’s Roasted Eggplant Parmesan

I was in the mood to try something new, so looking over the prepared meals section … I spotted and decided to pick up the Trader Joe’s Roasted Eggplant Parmesan. I wanted to try a roasted eggplant dish for a while. And since I’m a huge fan of the eggplant towers so I figured this might be equally as delicious.

Deciding to have this for dinner one day, I followed the microwave cooking directions. When done I removed it from the microwave and let it sit for a few minutes as it was scalding hot. Cutting it up into three equal size pieces I served a serving to myself and a serving to my mother. The one thing I liked off the bat was the fact it was so cheesy. Taking the first bite I found the sauce had a very nice flavor to it … although the eggplant was a total disappointment. The eggplant was cut into moderately thick slices which were then cut into chunks. Unfortunately that’s where the good meal stopped rolling. The eggplant was so chewy and hard I could not even eat it. The outside “ring” of the eggplant was like a chewy rubber band and the middle was slightly softer. I’m pretty sure the meal isn’t ‘designed’ to be this way … but I’m pretty sure I just ended up with a dud of a dish.  A dinner of sauce and cheese isn’t exactly my type of thing so I chucked the dish into the garbage and picked up a chicken sandwich when I ran out.

Overall consensus between my mother and me was that it had good flavor, delicious mountain of cheese BUT the fact that it’s an eggplant dish and you couldn’t even enjoy/eat the eggplant … makes it rather pointless. Fail.

A serving is 1/3 the package (8 oz) which is 280 calories or 8 points plus values.