Eggplant Involtini

There are no good fresh tomatoes for us this time of year, so subbed a jar of Rienzi arrabbiata sauce, otherwise followed recipe.  Served with broccoli rabe/grilled Italian turkey sausage and a romaine salad.   Very good cold-weather supper. 

Let me start by saying this turned out to be a delicious dish and a great way to use up fresh tomatoes from the garden.  This recipe did,  however,  take a solid 2 hours to make.  Also,  the recipe could have been written better,  ex: step one toast pine nuts and bread and set aside, instead of getting halfway through the process and realizing several ingredients should have been prepared up front.  

I made this a few nights ago and loved the sauce with the fresh tomatoes, it was delicious. The eggplant was good although I will peel it next time. I didn't not enjoy the filling at all. I will make this again but will probably fill it with a more tradtional ricotta mixture and skip the pine nuts, bread, and basil, maybe adding the basil to the sauce.

Plan on 2 hours total prep and cooking time. I added 3 cloves of garlic and dried oregano to the tomato sauce. I peeled the eggplant. I added parsley to cheese mixture. The pine nuts were OK with us. I don't think I will add the toasted bread next time - it didn't really serve a purpose. This also needs a touch more salt. Overall, not bad.

Good solid eggplant recipe; one my husband calls a "keeper". By accident I left out the lemon peel the second time and we like it better with out it. We like eggplant peel and leave it in the recipe. Changes, added a pinch of red pepper and parsley to the sauce for some kick. As my eggplants ripen this summer we will have this often.

It was fine. Good flavor, although I didn't have any pine nuts. I would definitely peel eggplant next time. Made the dish a little bitter.

Very Good. I doubled the garlic, added 1t. crushed red peppers to sauce and used Roundys 5 italian cheese blend.

Used homegrown tomatoes & basil, outcome was very nice. It was hot today, so I grilled the eggplant rather than broiling. Baking time had to be increased by 10 minutes though. Next time I'll add oregano to the ricotta mix, it needed a bit more herb influence.

This was awful. I love pine nuts, but it ruined this dish or at least what I imagined it to taste like. I would start modifying by first eliminating the pine nuts and then going from there.

I thought this dish was really good! I did opt to peel the eggplant because I am not that fond of the skin. The lemon in the ricotta filling was just perfect and the garlic was definitely not overwhelming. It is Italian food! I love that the tomato sauce relies almost entirely on the flavor of fresh tomatoes. It was great.

Really liked this recipe a lot. I will reduce the amount of lemon rind next time and then I think it will be a 5-star recipe. Leftovers are wonderful.

I thought the garlic was a little overwhelming, and we were generally unimpressed by this one.

This is a wonderful recipe, but if I make it again I will peel the eggplant. While it made the appearance of the dish appealing, the skin never softened, was bitter and chewy and detracted from the rest.