Roasted Eggplant Salad

My sister was here visiting this past week and we were able to share some dinners together.
We both love eggplant, so I saved these recipes that I had spotted a couple of weeks earlier, for her visit.

Preparing dinner for starving children doesn't provide the best opportunity for taking photos, so excuse the bad picture of this one. Don't let it stop you from trying this recipe.

This particular night, we had this delicious eggplant salad over quinoa and steamed broccoli and cauliflower on the side.
We had 6 hungry kids between the 2 of us and everyone enjoyed this yummy salad.

Eggplant is one of my favorite things to roast in the oven. It takes on whatever flavor you want it too and it becomes brown, crunchy on the edges and melt-in-your-mouth smooth, all at the same time.

There were three salad variations that went along with the basic roasted eggplant and this time we went with the chickpea & feta version. I threw in some halved cherry tomatoes because tomatoes go well with the other ingredients and then I snipped some fresh herbs from outside my front door and added them to the mix.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Recipe for Basic Roasted Eggplant
* I used less oil

Recipe for Eggplant Salad with Chickpeas and Feta
* I used less oil and less feta than the recipe called for
* I added halved cherry tomatoes
* I added equal amounts of Italian parsley, mint and basil