Carbless Sin - Mini Aubergine / Eggplant Pizza with Chorizo and Parmezan

Sometimes being too lazy to go to the store results in something wonderful like this. I started with a wrinkly eggplant/aubergine I'd forgotten about and this happened. *so happy*
These are mini eggplant/aubergine pizza's with a 'raw' tomato sauce, some leftover chorizo and a bit of parmezan, which had hardened which made it very hard to grate, so I just put little cubes on them, and it was wonderful, you guys. Maybe it was because I was a bit desperate to put together without going to the store, but honestly it was. I have since these made another version of these (actually following a recipe) at home with my family, but that one had a sauce that was more work, and without the chorizo, but with mozzarella. But the original leftover version of them was better imo (in my opinion)! Chorizo really made this magical. The leftover rucola was a nice touch, if I may say so myself. And I'm definitely making this super-easy raw tomato sauce again for other things. Let's get on with the recipe of these awesome 'leftovers' eggplant pizza. First version of the recipe will be the extended one, with reasoning behind everything. And then there's a short one at the bottom which you can use while cooking.

Lunch/Snack/Appetizer - 1 eggplant ~ 12 pizza - 650cal - 30min (without salting)

(45g fat; 44g carbs and 22g protein)

Ingredients

Base
- Eggplant / Aubergine: A little wrinkly is totally okay! If it has brown spots or feels really mushy your eggplant might not be salvageable. :(

Raw Tomato Sauce
- Can of peeled tomatoes: We're blending them, so can be whole or cubed. I prefer unseasoned, because then I control what goes in them.
- Garlic: I used about 3 or 4 cloves for a can of 400g / 14oz tomatoes. You're going to have lots of sauce leftover, but I didn't have a smaller can. I used it up in other stuff though. Comment below if you need inspiration as to for what this sauce would work as well ;)
- Onion: A small one for this amount of sauce. I think I used a small yellow one, but chef's pick!

Toppings
- Chorizo: Or some other tasty toppings, but I really liked my mild chorizo I had leftover from my last recipe, the Mexican hash, on this, but definitely going to try other stuff on here, I'll update this post as I do!
-  Parmigiano Reggiano: Or another tasty cheese, really this recipe is super versatile I think, just like real pizza! :) Again I'll update this post as I go along. Maybe some feta or blue cheese? Hell yeah!
General
- Olive oil
- Oregano, Salt&Pepper (and I used some frozen Basil)
- Balsamic Vinegar

Salad (Optional) 
- Rucola
- Lemon juice
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Pepper&Salt

Instructions

Note: Now if you are interested I made a different little post about eggplants in general. I started my explanation here, but it got a bit long so I decided to make a separate post out of it. Let me know if you like these little reference posts. So check it out to find out why a wrinkly eggplant is no problem and also whether or not you should do this first step: the salting. If you're in a hurry, I think you can skip it, but you decide for yourself after you read all about it.

- Salting: Cut your eggplant into slices of maximum 1inch / 2.5cm thick. Put a generous amount of (preferably course sea) salt on one side, turn them over and put them on a double piece of paper
towel, salt other side and cover with another sheet of paper towel. Leave for 20-45 minutes (depending on how patient/hungry you are) and brush off (sea)salt with more paper towel.

- Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C

- But slices on a baking plate. Brush on olive oil and sprinkle with oregano and pepper (should already be salted from leftover salt) and optionally some additional mixed Italian seasoning. Put in oven for 10 minutes, turn them over, oil and season other side and go in for another 10min.

- While the eggplant slices are roasting make the raw tomato sauce. Simply blend your canned tomatoes, garlic and onion. Season with salt, pepper, oregano, basil, balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning.

- Also cut up your toppings and grate/crumble your chosen cheese. In my case chorizo and parmesan. I had to cut up my parmesan into small cubes because it was also quite old and had become too hard to grate easily.

- Put some of your tomato sauce on each slice, sprinkle generously with (frozen, cut up) basil, add toppings and cheese. Optionally add some hot pepper flakes or cayenne if you like it spicy.

- Put under the broiler until cheese is melted.

- Mix some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, pepper and salt. Sprinkle over the rocket salad.

- Go to town on those pizza! I ate them all for lunch. I didn't mean to because now I can't tell you guys how they re-heat or taste cold, but they were just too good. It was so much though! I had this for a late lunch and didn't really feel hungry any more for the rest of the day. :)

Short recipe

- Eggplant / Aubergine

- Canned tomatoes (400g / 14oz)

- Garlic (3/4 cloves)

- Onion (small)

- Chorizo (25g)

- Parmesan (25g)

- Olive oil

- Balsamic Vinegar

- Oregano, Italian Seasoning

- Salt&Pepper

- (Frozen) Basil

- Optional: rocket lettuce / arugola, lemon juice

 - Slice eggplant and salt both sides. Leave for 20-45minutes in between paper towel to drain. Brush off salt

- Season slices with olive oil, pepper, oregano and Italian seasoning and roast for 10minutes at 350F/180F, turn over, season other side and roast for another 10min.

- Blend canned tomatoes, garlic and onion. Season with salt, pepper, 1tsp oregano, 2tsp balsamic vinegar, 0.5tsp Italian seasoning and 3tsp cut-up (frozen) basil.

- Dice chorizo very finely and grate / finely cube parmesan.

- Put generous amount of tomato sauce on eggplant slices, top with more basil, add chorizo and parmesan and put under the broiler until cheese has melted.


- Mix 1tsp olive oil, 1tsp balsamic vinegar, 0.5tsp lemon juice, salt & pepper. Dress lettuce (rocket or otherwise) lightly with vinaigrette.

- Enjoy your guiltless pizza!

Variations

  Vegetarian alternative: Obviously you can just leave out the chorizo and add some mozzarella or other toppings.

Alternative sauce: If you dislike the taste of raw tomato or garlic, I would recommend foregoing this flavourful raw sauce for a cooked version. Just heat a tsp or 2 of olive oil, sauté your crushed garlic cloves (don't brown), add diced tomatoes (fresh or canned), oregano, Italian seasoning, salt &pepper. Let sauce cook at a low simmer until it thickens while stirring so tomatoes break up. Add a bit of water if needed and keep simmering until needed. This will basically make a milder version of the sauce used above. Of course you can add some onion to this version as well, above it is more necessary so that your sauce isn't too liquid.