Super Easy Eggplant Bake

So easy it's ridiculous...

1 lb eggplant
1 bell pepper
1/2 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 jar pasta sauce
4 oz shredded cheese

Slice eggplant into 1/3" rounds. Salt slices and allow to sit 10-15 minutes. Rinse off salt and drain. This will remove any bitterness from the eggplant. Slice or chop pepper and onion as desired, and combine with garlic. Layer eggplant in lasagna pan, top with pepper and onion mixture, pour pasta sauce over and top with shredded cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Serve over pasta.

You could even layer in no-boil lasagna noodles if you want to skip the step of boiling pasta (just don't put them as the first layer or they will likely stick). I would add 1/4 cup of water if using no-boil lasagna noodles, but otherwise the eggplant releases enough water to make a good sauce for the pasta. I chose to sautee the peppers and onions in olive oil for a little extra flavor, but since this bakes for an hour it's not necessary to cook the vegetables beforehand.

Like I said, easy... and delicious.

Shhh

I'm hibernating.

Granogue... Now with less heckling!

Actually, there was no heckling at Granogue. I'm pretty sure if there were any, FatMarc would have been there in about 2.2 seconds to rip the hecklers a new one. 'Cause that's how we roll in the Mid-Atlantic.

Granogue this year was a bunch of slippy, sloppy wet mud. Runups. No barriers!?! Tons of people hanging out by the SRAM fencing just waiting for someone to go down in the mud. A lot of "Ohhhh!" when they went down. A lot of "Yeahhhh!" when they got up and kept going. No booing. More cowbell. Tons of photographers promising to make me look fast as I walked up the back runup. Tons of spectators cheering me on the entire time it took me to "wog" up the front runup, and that was no short wog! Auer in the pits telling me to ride on the grass. Me frustratedly telling him that I WAS riding on the grass. A minor crash on the first lap through the downhill S-turn for me, each lap afterwards I rode it clean and gained on the women ahead of me. Awesome teammates in the pits keeping my bikes clean & running!

I learned a lot about racing in the mud, and I had a lot of fun. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be and it wasn't as miserable as I expected. It was actually an enjoyable experience... even if I was lapped. This time I was lapped later on in the race, maybe next time not at all? Maybe my legs are starting to come around... either that or mud is the great equalizer.