Saucy baked eggplant

We’ve been really giving eggplant a lot of love these days, which is something so new and so delicate I’m almost afraid to talk about it in case that curses us to a slew of bad eggplants whose bitterness can neither be salted nor pounded away.

But, what the hell. I’ve been really wanting eggplant parmesan, but I am about 98% spent by dinnertime on a given weekday, so there’s none of this salting, then pounding, then dredging in eggwhites and breadcrumbs, then frying or baking, and so on. This hit the same general notes with maybe a quarter of the effort, which is a win. Plus, during the lengthier segments of prep, I was able to take naps.

saucy baked eggplant

This was so easy, it’s barely a recipe. I washed a medium white eggplant, sliced it into ~1/4 inch rounds, salted them in a colander over the sink for an hour, took a nap, preheated the oven to 375*, rinsed the eggplant and beat the bitterness out between paper towels, layered tomato sauce and eggplant in a baking dish, topped with some fresh mozzarella, covered with foil, and baked for 40 minutes, taking another nap in the process. While I slept, Matt cooked some macaroni and we served up a delightful meal.

I’ve got ideas for eggplant that extend beyond the pasta realm – homemade baigan bharta, stir fry with eggplant, maybe some baba ganoush. But, for tonight, this was perfect.

Piece of cake

I spent the majority of my Sunday in and out of the kitchen – cleaning a little, but mostly freezing fresh tomatoes and some chickpeas I cooked on Saturday, simmering enough stock to use for dinner with some left for the freezer, cooking dinner, and even making some dessert. Sometimes you build up that kitchen momentum and it would be dangerous to stop. Plus, I learned today that freezers run more efficiently when nearly full, so the fact that I added all of the above mentioned things to ours makes me feel like I did a good thing.

Even though it was still in the 80s when we sat down to dinner last night, I was dead-set on having soup. This soup in particular caught my eye after buying my first leeks ever at the farmer’s market on Saturday. My version was quite similar but with olive oil instead of butter (we’re out) and, sadly, there was no dill to be found at my usual markets. It was still lovely and warming and hearty and I know it will be perfect in about two months when I’m coming home with frozen hair.

I hope you click over to the recipe because her picture is quite impressive and my picture is, well, I don’t have a picture. What I do have is four different shots of blinding white light that might be bowls of soup. Now that it’s getting dark earlier and we use those low watt cfl bulbs (hides the dirt – try it!), it’s almost impossible for me to get a decent picture. I really don’t know how to use the camera, to be honest, and it’s not actually mine.

I did get a shot or two of this:

what's more comforting than cake?

I baked a cake! All by myself! People who know me in real life might be aware that, while I’m obviously an accomplished home cook, I’m not much of a baker. And, aside from the occasional batch of cookies, I try to stick to what I know. But, when I was visiting my family a few months back, my mother patiently stood with me while I made my first zucchini bread and “helped” me make a pound cake. Since then I baked 2 loaves of zucchini bread before I put my hand mixer back in the bottom drawer where it belongs. With all of the other stuff I don’t use.

But this? This was easy. I stumbled on this recipe last week and when I bought a pint of raspberries at the farmer’s market this weekend, I knew I wanted to try it. While the soup was cooking, I bravely preheated the oven and got to work. The batter was thicker than I expected but other than that, it went off without a hitch.

I’m glad I had the foresight to take that picture before I “plated it” because I did a truly horrifying job removing the cake from the pan, and it fell apart in about 25 different pieces. Oh well. Easier for snack-size servings. It tasted great, and the raspberries were a good counter to the sweetness of that 3/4 cup of sugar. I’d like to reduce the sugar next time, but I’m not sure what would happen if I did. Do you know? This is why baking makes me nervous. Because of science.

I just had another piece, and I can’t help but think how nice it would be to have a homemade cake on hand all the time.

Comfort food

The temperatures have dropped a bit, and I don’t know if it’s that or the exhaustion I’ve been fighting, but I’ve been heading straight for my comfort foods this week.

I don’t know what it says about the person I’ve become that I’d rather have a giant bowl of roasted vegetables than a piece of cheesecake when I’m tired or in a bad mood, but roasted eggplant is just so good now that I’ve finally developed an effective method to reduce the bitterness (slice, salt over a colander for an hour, then rinse and lay out in a layer between two paper towels and beat the slices to near death with an empty beer bottle. I assume other bottles would work but I’m just going from my own experience here). I guess I just need to embrace it because this pasta with eggplant, zucchini, mini-romas, and garlic was a near-perfect meal.

emotional eating that I can get behind

The pictures in this post are going to be even worse than normal, just to warn you. See above re: exhaustion.

The eggplant and zucchini that we had in the crisper were both huge, so the pan of vegetables I roasted (375* for 45 minutes) was actually full to overflowing. So we had a whole glass dish of leftovers to complement another comforting favorite: barley risotto. Just plain this time, as the mushrooms we were going to use were green-tinged and slimy. Awesome!

I was going to put the picture in, but I just can’t. I respect you too much. It’s terrible. If you want to see some barley risotto, here’s one I don’t find completely embarrassing. I’ve also made it about 28 other times if you’re looking for recipes. I was getting into arborio rice but we’re on a grocery budget again and barley is less than 1/2 the price, pound for pound, so it’s back in our lives.

Today, we finally opened this jar of tomatillo salsa that we’ve been trying to open for literally weeks and had some black bean chilaquiles to celebrate.

chilaquiles!

These were easy and warm and comforting – a perfect Saturday night meal. I just cut up two tortillas and burned them again on 450* for 10 minutes. I turned the oven down to 350* and cooked a diced green pepper and a small diced onion in a skillet with some olive oil on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. I turned the heat down and added about a cup and half of black beans, just to heat them up for a minute or two because I didn’t defrost them. Then, I layered the chips, beans/peppers/onions, and about a cup and a half of roasted salsa verde into a baking dish and baked for about 25 minutes, until the chips were really soft. Chilaquiles aren’t traditionally baked but I needed my one large burner to cook some chickpeas and so in the oven it went. On the side, some tomatoes from my favorite kid at the farmer’s market who keeps a really careful tally of how many pints of his tomatoes have been sold so that his dad knows how much he’s going to have to pay him out later.

And now, for more comfort, there’s TV on DVD waiting for me. Between Netflix and Hulu, I think I actually watch more TV now than I did when we had cable. Today, I even made Matt go to the video store to rent two discs of 24 because I’m completely addicted to it (I know – is it 2001 already??) and even though we already pay 20 dollars a month for Netflix I was somehow able to justify it because we walked to the video store so we were saving money on gas.

S(o)uper Easy

I’m sorry about that. I really am. Titles are just not my strong suit.

But soup is!

quesadilla soup

I set out to make a basic tortilla soup to use up a few things – a few cups of black beans from Sunday’s batch, some frozen corn just taking up valuable freezer space, 1/3 of a red pepper left over from the chickpea croquettes I loved so much, and a few spoonfuls of salsa. Matt had the brilliant idea of adding cheese to the soup itself IN ADDITION to putting some on top with the tortilla chips.

Whoa.

So the extra cheese made it quesadilla soup (clever!) and also made it extra good. Bonus: it disguised the “extra charred” flavor of the tortilla chips I completely burned. I mean the rustic tortilla chips. Rustic because I couldn’t be bothered to cut them so I just ripped them into pieces and they ended up looking really kind of sad. But extra crispy!

Quesadilla soup

You need:

• 1 flour or 2 corn tortillas
• a little olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced (or to taste – I used more)
• 1/2 red bell pepper (a whole one would also be great), diced
• 1.5 – 2 cups of cooked black beans (or about 1 can, rinsed and drained)
• 1 cup of corn
• cumin, chili powder, and cayenne to taste
• 1/3 cup salsa
• 1-2 oz cheese, grated

And then you:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium.
2. Add garlic, the add diced pepper when fragrant. Cook for about 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425.
4. Cut or rip tortilla(s) into roughly even pieces. Lay on on a baking sheet and spray lightly with oil.
5. Add 4 cups of water (or broth) to pot.
6. Add corn and beans, as well as seasoning. Bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 15 minutes.
8. When the soup has been simmering for 5 minutes, put pan with tortillas in oven. About 5 minutes later, flip them, reducing heat if they get too dark (obviously I missed this step). Then 5 more minutes later (a total of 10 for the chips), take them out.
9. When soup is simmered, add salsa and cheese. Increase heat to medium and heat through for  a minute or two.
10. Spoon into bowls.
11. Serve with tortilla chips and cheese on top. And more salsa if you’re lucky enough to have some.

This makes about four servings. I had mine with unpictured okra. Unpictured because it’s really becoming a daily habit.

I have a new personal chef.

So, I’ve been trying to jump on the party bus and get into Mad Men like the rest of the world, but after the first few episodes of season one, I’m less than impressed. We were watching an episode the other day during which a young newlywed’s wife called him at the office to see what he wanted for dinner and I don’t remember his exact response but I think it was something along the lines of “I don’t care, little woman. I hate all members of your sex, and so do my colleagues.” But then, he turns to one of those colleagues and is all zen and calm in his realization that dinner’s going to be waiting for him when he gets home. And then I wanted to throw something at the tv and yell “Chauvinist!” but it was after 10:00 and there’s a noise ordinance.

But then tonight I came home from work and Matt had dinner just coming out of the oven (there were literally 9 seconds left on the timer, it was beautiful) and I ate it and I couldn’t help but think that maybe there’s something to this whole “dinner on the table” thing after all. That something being that my husband is awesome. And I love crispy things with cheese. And the fact that we don’t actually have a table on which dinner can be waiting doesn’t detract from either of those things.

beery cheesy flatbread

We talked last night about tag-teaming some pizza with that super easy dough we used a few months back, but Matt got all industrious while I was at work and somehow telepathically knew I was exhausted and didn’t really want to do my part, so he found a different beer dough recipe (he can’t remember from where) (ETA: he corrected me – he found it from the Google. He suggests searching “pizza dough from beer”), used up some cheese we had languishing in the refrigerator (colby jack I think), and made an experimental flatbread pizza. I thought it was delicious, like a whole pizza made of crust, which is my favorite part. Matt, ever the critic of his own culinary ventures, thought it tasted like “stale cheese toast.” If this is stale cheese toast, I’d like a few hundred pieces, please.

The cucumber and tomato salad on the side was all me, though. I made it last night as a topping for another Matt-made meal, from the newest issue of Vegetarian Times. The recipe isn’t up on their site yet, but I’ll add it when it is.

chickpea croquettes with greek salad topping

I was really sore and tired yesterday, and I was thisclose to going out to dinner, but I’m glad we didn’t because this was way better. Plus, we went all over town looking for chickpea flour that didn’t cost $7.99 a pound. We finally found a decent-sized bag for $2.99 at the international grocery store, where the woman working behind the counter took a break from clipping her toenails to ring us up.

I’m not even kidding.

Anyway, this was probably my favorite new recipe I’ve tried in the past few weeks, and I can’t wait to make these croquettes again. Or, more accurately, have Matt make them again. They also make a delightful lunch, served cold with the salad – they’re super filling without being heavy. However, store them in an airtight container because a plastic bag is no match for that much cumin. I learned that lesson for you.

Okay, so, level with me. Is the first season of Mad Men really worth my time? Because my time is precious. There are literally hundreds of DVDs in my Netflix queue vying for my attention.

Muy refresco

After a long, exhausting week, all I wanted to do was come home, eat some burritos, and polish off the last disc of 90210 season one. Oh, and to blow off stuff I actually need to do, like laundry.

So, I did.

a big pan of quinoa and red bean burritos

There were also some delicious beverages…

Mexican Coke

It’s got sugar, not high fructose corn syrup, and it costs $1.85 a bottle, but it is oh so delicious.

And, my new favorite…

okra fries (thanks, Antoinette!)

And now I’m seeing some bourbon vanilla ice cream in my immediate future.

I love Fridays.

Soup for the sick

Well, we were completely cable-free for less than 24 hours and then I got sick.

Coincidence?

I think you know the answer to that.

Tonight I was feeling well enough to cook again, and, true to form, I had to make soup. When I’m sick, I make soup. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes I branch out and make stew. But tonight I wasn’t feeling very adventurous.

everything but the crisper drawer soup

Soup is good when you’re not 100% because it’s so easy.

Basically, I sauteed all the vegetables I had left from last Saturday’s farmer’s market – some carrots, a red pepper, and a zucchini. I added some stock, some water, a few bay leaves, some salt, some pepper, and brought to a boil. I simmered the vegetables in the liquid for 15 minutes and then added 1 1/2 cups of frozen, thawed red kidney beans and 1/3 cup of ancini de pepe and brought to a hard simmer until the pasta was cooked, about 5 minutes. I took out the bay leaves and added some thyme and oregano at the end because it was a little bland.

Now I’m contemplating freezing some portions but I’m getting conflicting information from the internet on freezing soups with pasta. The internet can be so confusing sometimes. Thoughts? Advice?

Goodbye, sweet cable.

I was really right about that whole canceled cable = increased blogging, yeah? We turned in the DVR tonight, so now it’s really over. Thank God for the internet.

As soon as I saw Roasted Tomatoes and Cipollini on Smitten Kitchen last week, I knew I had to make it. I love few things more than roasted tomatoes and they had tiny little sweet onions for $1.50 a box at the farmer’s market, so I was sold.

mmmmmmmm

I skipped the whole toasting the bread step and just had Matt slice up a loaf of French bread, which was awesome with the roasting juices. My onions weren’t as soft as cippolini, so after the tomatoes roasted for about 45 minutes, I cranked the oven up to 450 and let the onions collapse and blister before adding them to the mix.

This is delicious, even without real cippolini. I guess 128 commenters don’t lie.

Back so soon?

Look at this! Here I am, posting again!

I’m feeling very productive and frugal tonight, as I actually got around to making another batch of homemade energy bars (based on Ellie Krieger’s, naturally). Honestly, I’m feeling a little nervous about them because this batch was much harder to spread than the first one, which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, throwing everything into my wee little food processor without even chopping things like almonds first wasn’t the best idea I’ve had recently.

But hey, it’s Monday. And I usually pay 4 dollars for 6 Kashi bars that have whole almonds, so this can’t be too far from that.

Anyway, I’m sure the food processor will recover, regardless of the horrific whir of death it gave towards the end of the whole deal.

So you can stop worrying.

Upwards and onwards! Last night I made zucchini lasagna sans noodles. Who needs them, really? A lot of fuss. I didn’t miss them at all.

noodles might, however, have provided structural integrity

It sort of looks like lasagna, right?

It did in the baking dish, I swear.

Looks aside, this was really fresh and flavorful. And almost painfully easy.

It all started with these…

farm fresh tomatoes

The green ones you can sort of see are an heirloom cherry tomato called Aunt Ruby’s German and they are a lifestyle. My guy at the farmer’s market brings them specifically for me but they are insanely delicate and tend to crack and break and get really gross, really fast, so this time he sold me a whole bucket of them for $1.50 and I salvaged like 1/2 a pound. But they are so, so good.

Anyway, those became this…

farm fresh tomato sauce

And, let me tell you, this was my first time making tomato sauce that does not involve cans of anything and it is so much better that it’s not even worth discussing but those tomatoes also really condense. I have this big dream in which I buy a dozen pounds of tomatoes at the farmers market and make little jars of sauce to last us through the winter. And then two dozen ears of corn and I cut off all the raw kernels and freeze them up and then one day in December I cry a little bit because I can put fresh corn in my chili. And in January we have spaghetti with red sauce that tastes like tomatoes.

But I’m sure everyone has dreams like that.

So, the little bit of tomato sauce I actually made went into the lasagna, layered with zucchini, sliced lengthwise, and then whatever cheese I could find. I think it was zucchini, sauce, cheese, zucchini, sauce, cheese, zucchini, cheese. If you’re taking notes. Then I baked it at 350 for 40 minutes, covered with foil, and uncovered at 375 for another 15 or so.

And while it’s a simple dish, it took me a really long time to slice the zucchini just so and layer and cook and all of that, so tonight we opted for something simpler to showcase these awesome oyster mushrooms Matt got at the farmer’s market.

stir fry

Tofu, cubed and fried, tossed with a stir fry of green beans, oyster mushrooms, and rice sticks. And some sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic, and ginger.

Something smells wholesome. I better go check on those energy bars.

A few of my favorite things

I’ve gotten a few comments in passing recently that have tugged at my blogger conscience, and even though my life is not showing any signs of slowing down, we did cut our ties with cable television and I have been freed from the horrifying grasp of reality television. So, I’m hoping to take a little of that time to get back into this blogging thing in earnest.

Instead of trying to remember all of the things I’ve cooked while I’ve been on blogcation, I’ll just hit a few of the highlights.

late summer gumbo with lentils. they're french. so, automatically gourmet.

the greatest pasta of all time.

Literally. The best pasta ever. And I mean literally in the literal sense. Not the American sense.

Dayna tipped me off to this recipe and I think I may be a Giada De Laurentiis convert. Until now, I’ve never really considered her someone to whom I should be paying a huge amount of attention, though she certainly has very pretty hair. Now I would like her to come cook for me.

And while we’re talking pasta, let me introduce another new favorite:

pasta with arugula and walnuts

I came up with this one after reading Giulia Melucci’s I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. At one point she talks about making pasta with arugula and pine nuts and I became completely obsessed with the idea of arugula. I usually feel kind of “eh” about arugula but for some reason I wanted to try it with pasta so much that I ran around like a crazy person at the farmer’s market begging for spicy lettuce. The dish above was made with a plastic container of baby arugula that I broke down and bought to get my fix. I thought walnuts sounded better than pine nuts and what do you know? We also had some. So they count as free. I toasted the walnuts, added some olive oil, threw in some garlic and crushed red pepper, added a little dry white whine, and then wilted the arugula. We had it again last week with grown-up arugula and I thought it was even better.

summer squash gratin

This is totally amazing. I followed the recipe fairly closely, just subbing in a green pepper for a red one, and using short grain brown rice instead of considerably more expensive arborio or carnoli rice. It tasted extra delicious because I ate it while watching that episode from the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 during which Brenda and Brandon have a party! And Brandon succumbs to peer pressure! And Jim and Cindy make some new ‘friends’ in Palm Springs! And Brandon gets arrested for drunk driving and he doesn’t even get in real trouble because they’re just so glad he’s okay!

I’m so glad I picked these up from the library. Who needs cable when you watch the original 9er

And that brings us up to date because here’s tonight’s meal:

end of summer barley risotto

I even tried to sort of plate it. Like they do in restaurants when it comes out all formed. And do you see the top bit of the plate there? Yes, you do. That is the greatest thing that has happened to me recently: roasted okra. I saw this post the other day and saw some good looking okra at the farmer’s market this morning and I like okra so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Y’all. I feel confident saying that I could seriously eat this every single day. The okra was crispy outside and soft inside and I’m not ashamed to say that I ate a whole container in this manner because Matt didn’t seem to be as excited about it as I was. And I wasn’t about to let him experience its greatness without appropriate enthusiasm.