Eggplant
This year we are growing Japanese and Black Beauty Eggplant, roast, sautee, bake, all produce amazing results!
Jamaican Cook-Up Rice
Adapted from a recipe found on Ashbury’s Aubergines a comprehensive guide to cooking eggplant!
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 medium zucchini
1 japanese eggplant, diced
8 medium button mushrooms, sliced, up to 10
1/2 to 1 scotch bonnet pepper or other hot pepper seeded and minced (I use 1 jalepeno)
2 cups water
1 cup reduced-fat coconut milk (or water for a light version)
1 1/2 cups white rice
2 cups peeled and diced winter squash or sweet potato or carrots
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chopped greens (kale or swiss chard or beet greens or spinach)
2 cups cooked red kidney beans or pigeon peas, drained
In a large saucepan, heat the oil. Add the onion, bell pepper, zucchini, mushrooms, and chili pepper, if desired, and sauté for about 7 minutes. Add the water, coconut milk, rice, winter squash, and seasonings. Cover and cook over medium
low heat for 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir in the greens and beans and cook for a few minutes more. Turn off the heat, fluff the rice, and let sit on the stove top for about 10 minutes.
The Little Mousey’s Ratatouille?
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
2 brandywine tomatoes, pureed
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red or yellow or chocolate bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.
Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube. With a sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices.
Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, alternating vegetables. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.
Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside of your baking dish Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.
