Eating Dinner With My Family

Well it's Wednesday and I realize I have forgotten all about my Meatless Monday recipe. I just kind of threw things together and as it was a few days ago, I can't be 100% sure of my measurements.  Also, I cooked it like pizza, and I think a lower temp with a longer cooking time would have resulted in a better end product.  Oh yeah, I'm not the one usually rolling out the dough, and as you can see from the pictures of it whole, it's pretty rustic looking;).  All that means is no real recipe tonight, just a bit of a recommendation.  The recommendation: diced roasted eggplant is a nice addition to a calzone or pizza for your meatless Mondays.  Also I like to have this as kind of a dinner diary, so I'm doing a post.  Sorry for slacking :D

I loved tonight's dinner. We had our "Meatless Monday" tonight as we had guests Monday night and just swapped days we made meatless. I had an eggplant from Front Porch Pickings so yippee I get to make some even though the boys aren't fans.  Just one more great reason to use a csa or community sponsored agriculture.  (Although FPP is better than any other one I have used. I love that you can customize your baskets.)  Funny story my husband started singing "you down with FPP " so of course I answered "yea you know me". Your welcome for the ear worm.  But back to having a CSA, there are so many reasons I love and advocate for people joining one.  First and most important to the foodie in me is that the quality, flavor and variety can't be matched by a large grocery.  Secondly it is the healthiest option for your produce.  Local means more time to mature on the plant and more nutrients in your food.  The delivery of local and seasona...

My darling, aunt in law I guess, gave me this huge beautiful eggplant. When I went  on my meatless board on Pinterest, the first one that popped up was this one. I figured it was fate and decided I had to make it. It was a bit of work but not to terribly much. I made the tomato sauce the day before which cut out a lot of time and some work off the dish. I think the tomato sauce was pretty good, and it was most definitely better the next day.   I would think the whole dish is about a 3. Things that prevented it from ranking higher!  I would reduce the lemon juice or zest. Not that they weren't nice in it, but it was a lot of lemon flavor in the end. I also think it needs more tomato sauce to eggplant roll. So next time, instead of just a little in the bottom, I would put a good thick layer. Also, I only used 1/2 tablespoon of cream per roll. I am putting this in the fixable file. For the eggplant involtini recipe click here . For the tomato sauce r...

I had some lovely baby eggplant from my Front Porch Pickings basket, and while I would have loved some baba ganoush, I knew I would be the only one happy about that. I dug this out of my to try file; it was from Emeril and I got it off the food network site. It was a little work, mostly because of the chopping, but I think it was totally worth it!  I don't care for sausage, the boys don't care for eggplant, but we all devoured it. Even the baby girl ate well and that is impressive. It is totally rich, so all you can eat is about 2 shells, and I did tweak the recipe a bit based on how much eggplant I had, but it makes way more than 1/2 a box of pasta worth of shells.  If I had used the full amount of sausage and eggplant, I would have used an entire box of shell easy, but I would have needed a larger pan, or made it in two batches.  I really like this, and think I would be good without the sausage and more eggplant, or mushrooms in place of the sausage, or with veggie saus...

I saw an eggplant burger on 'The Best Thing I Ever Ate' and thought it sounded like a great idea. They gave you an idea if what was in it, but not the recipe. I decided for meatless Monday, I would take a stab at it. The result?  Tasty and fixable, but the "patty" was more like a paste and didn't stay together.  Even the boy, who is not a fan if eggplant, thought it tasty. His recommendation, which I think is brilliant, was to add some smokiness.  I think next time, I would mix in a drop or two if liquid smoke, but this time he added some smoked salt. I would also add garlic next time. What I'm not sure of is how to get it to retain its shape: more bread crumbs in the patty, breading the patty, more cheese in the patty (maybe even a cheese coating?) or possibly deep frying:)?  So while this tasted good, it is still a "fixable" recipe. Eggplant Veggie Burger 2 good size eggplants diced about 6 cups 2 scallion slice 1 tablespoon of olive oil ...

We do our big dinner on Christmas eve and graze on leftovers all day on Christmas.  We had my husband's side of the family in town for tonight and my MIL brought a beautiful prime rib for me to cook.  As it is a special occasion, we had a lot of dishes.  The menu tonight: Grilled Antipasto With Garlicky Bean Dip   Grilled Romaine With Blue Cheese-Bacon Vinaigrette Prime Rib Roast For A Small Crowd        Horseradish Sauce Mashed Potatoes and Gravy Coconut Cream Pie      As there are so many dishes, I figured I would write the post around them.  We started with the grilled antipasto.  It was the first time I had made it, and really loved it. It was a bit of work in that there were a bunch of veggies to be sliced, (I did the peppers and zucchini ahead of time as well as the bean dip), and the veggies took up a lot of space on the grill.  I pretty much had to do one type at a time....

I liked this one so much I gave it it's own post :) Grilled Antipasto With Garlicky Bean Dip 1    nineteen-ounce can cannellini beans,drained and rinsed 2    small garlic cloves,minced 2 T  fresh lemon juice 2 T  extra-virgin olive oil,plus more for brushing 1/2 c  chopped basil Salt and freshly ground pepper 6    small Italian frying peppers or Cubanelle peppers 4    medium zucchini,sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick 2    one-pound eggplants,sliced lengthwise 1/2 inch thick 24  anchovy fillets 24  marinated bocconcini (about 3/4 pound) 2    large beefsteak tomatoes (1 pound each),sliced crosswise 1/2 inch thick Grilled country bread,for serving 1.In a food processor, combine the beans with the garlic, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Process until smooth, then scrape into a bowl. Fold in the basil and season with salt and pepper. 2....

Update:   I had the eggplant, hummus, pickle and tomato/cucumber salad on a pita the next day for lunch and I loved it.  Maybe it was that it was all cold, or the sit over night melded the flavors of the salad,, but I thought it was a million times better the next day. I had such high hopes for this dish.  So may of my favorite things are in it, and it wasn't bad, but the consensus around the table was that it was a 3.  I even went out and bought these Mediterranean pickles I had at a local Mediterranean restaurant to try and make it how it should be.  My issues, since it is my blog and I was the one poised to love it, were that it was a bit soggy, and therefore sloppy, and I thought the potato was useless.  I wouldn't bother with it next time.  I didn't make my own pita and I got the only "sturdiness" available, so that may be part of the issue.  There was flavor, but it didn't deliver like I had hoped.  That aside, we are spoiled ...

I made this dish for me.  It if full of things that one or more of my family members don't care for.  However, I had the eggplant and the zucchini from my Front Porch Pickings basket and I had this in the to try file, and I really wanted to try it.  It was pretty easy to make.  The only things that may be difficult for one when making it really depends on the individual.  Are you uncomfortable with a knife?  Well there is a good bit of easy chopping.  The grill can also be a pain if you have charcoal, since that adds to the time involved.  (or if like us, the gas ran out half way through the cooking time:)  The good news, was it was wonderful!  Everyone liked it.  My son, who usually gags when eating eggplant loved it.  (he didn't realize that there was eggplant in it until near the end of the meal;)  It is a really nice, loaded with veggies, dish that pleased everyone.  I did alter the recipe only a tiny bit....

I love eggplant.  Eggplant Parmesan is a bit laborious and can easily be greasy since it is fried.  This Alton Brown recipe is a great alternative to it.  I have made this several times and the most important thing is to make sure the eggplant is evenly and thinly sliced.  If it isn't, I have had bits that seemed a bit under done.  While  I have followed the instructions precisely in the past, I had to make some adjustments just for the sake of not shopping.  I had the cute baby eggplants from my Front Porch Picking basket, and I needed to use them soon.  I wanted to make this dish, but I didn't have the tomatoes.  I worked around this by using a bit of high quality jarred tomato sauce.  My resulting dish was a bit soupier than it had been in the past, but I enjoyed it none the less. Eggplant Pasta 2    medium-large eggplants Kosher salt,for purging 4 T  olive oil 1 t  garlic,minced 1/2 t  chile flak...

Another beautiful bunch of eggplants from my Front Porch Pickings basket. One of the beautiful things about getting this basket (aside from the obvious fact that it is local, seasonal and fresh) is that variety is find of forced on you.  For example, I love eggplant, but the rest of the family doesn't.  Oh they eat it if I put an eggplant recipe on the menu, but it gets the cold shoulder.  Couple that with my mission of a different dinner every night, I get to enjoy veggies I like in new ways.  This recipe is one of those.  I loved my dinner.  (it had just a smidge too much garlic and heat for a perfect dish but easily tweaked and totally tasty as is)  I loved the fact that this recipe made the eggplant unrecognizable to my son whose attitude toward one of my favorite veggies is hostile.  We did the ingredient guessing game and he got all but eggplant.  The 1/4" dice made the eggplant break down into a sauc...

I had a variety of gorgeous eggplants from my Front Porch Pickings basket.  I decided rather than puree these beauties into Baba Ganoush, which everyone would eat, I was making them all for me.  I had been wanting to try this recipe anyways.  The sauce was good but very garlicky, so go light.  The biggest issue with the dish was totally my fault.  Some of the eggplants in the basket were babies and not ideal grilling fodder. That kept the recipe from being great.  I also hate to not to do justice to a great product so that's a double grrrrr for me.  Oh added bonus, the high sugar content of the sauce make it quite a chore to clean up the grill. (or grill basket as in my case) Easy Thai Grilled Eggplant 1 Chinese eggplant (other types of eggplant will work too) 4 T soy sauce 4 T oyster sauce 2 T fish sauce 2 T brown sugar + 1-2 more tsp. 7 -8 cloves garlic,minced 1 fresh minced red chili,OR 1-2 tsp. chili sauce (optional) 2 T w...