Curried Eggplant

 Eggplant seems to be one of those foods that you either love or hate. I happen to think that it's great. I can't believe I have never blogged about this recipe. This is a cheap, easy recipe that takes little to no time to assemble, depending on how well you can chop an onion, and peel an eggplant. It's nice and filling, and makes for a  great leftover lunch.  I have made it multiple times and enjoy it with a side of naan. This is also a great way to use spinach during the winter or maybe substituting the eggplant with a squash of some sort. Hmm.. the wheels are turning, but here is the link so you can try the recipe out for yourself.

Eggplant curry with a side of  naan. Please ignore the conspicuous placement of the can opener. 

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Laborless Watermelon Treats

 This is a blog post long overdue. A summer has once again come and gone super fast, and with the passing of Labor Day and the crispness of fall around the corner, I thought a post about sweet, cold, watermelon would be appropriate. This past week has been hot, the kind of stifling hot, that makes it hard to do anything. The latest box delivery was so heavy because of the watermelon. Labor Day being a day of no work I decided an easy watermelon salad for dessert would be cooling and satisfying treat.

The watermelon while not very large was so heavy with juice, that I could already  tell it was going to be good. Upon cutting into the melon, it made a satisfying popping sound. It was so sweet and perfectly ripe, not mealy at all and not even a lot of seeds. The salad I made is a combination of various recipes but mostly adapted from Super Natural Every Day: 
Taking one half of the melon I rubbed ginger all over it. Then I cut the melon into bite size pieces periodically rubbing the ginger on the smaller slices. Once the melon was cut up I added 4 pitted and sliced Medjool dates, a handful of roasted pistachio meats, some mint, and the juice of one lime. Together this makes the easiest dessert you can make and eat. There is nothing like eating a cold piece of melon on a hot day. The ginger and the lime add a nice tang to the sweetness of the watermelon. And the crunch of the pistachios, mixed with the date slivers gave a nice variety of textures. A salad that is refreshing and easy is always a great way to end a meal.

The other half of the melon was used to make a watermelon granita. This is even easier to make you just need to be patient because you need to allow time to allow it to freeze. Pureeing the melon with a little sugar and lime, we poured it into a 9x9 pan. While making space for the granita we decided to add a package of mango puree in as well. After a few hours, we scraped the shavings into a bowl. This was so good and much needed on a sweltering hot day. The mango puree didn't really add anything except a yellow orange tint. This is the best natural snow cone you can make, and tastes fresh at the same time. I think next time some basil or mint might be added in as well.

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Out of the Box and On the Road

I am having the hardest time writing this post, I got back from Seattle/Canada on Monday night I am back from a blissful and enjoyable vacation. I had such an enjoyable time hanging out with people I love and eating lots of fun things. Washington during the summer is a glorious time to be visiting, everything is a lush green and people are out and about everywhere enjoying the warmth of the sun. Growing among all the greenery are blackberries, and they grow everywhere. This is such a novel treat to me but they can become an overgrown thorny sweet weed if you let them take over a backyard.

I expected to see super ripe plump blackberries to be ready to be picked and plentiful but because of such a long winter they were just coming into the season there were green berries everywhere. We managed to find a  nice little spot of ripe berries and picked enough to make some blackberry compote. I was given Heidi Swanson's new cookbook Super Natural Everyday and have become totally obsessed with it and what better place to make blackberry compote than in Seattle where the blackberries are wild and free.

This is the shortened abridged version of her recipe. You really could put this on top of anything or just eat it by the spoonful.

2 cups of blackberries

2 tablespoons of maple syrup

2 tablespoons of sugar

 juice from half a lemon

a little salt

Combine one third of the berries along with the maple syrup and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Gently simmer for three minutes. Drain the syrup through a strainer and press down on the solids to get as much of the juice out. I was pretty liberal with this part because I didn't have a fine sieve. Pour the syrup on the uncooked berries adding the lemon and salt. 

Taste and enjoy. We had ours over vanilla ice cream and it was amazing.

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A Blogging Vacation

I've been taking an unexpected blog vacation, due to a lot of things going on, I feel like I'm not cooking as much as I would like to be. I also just recently broke my camera, bad. I will be back to normal blogging activity soon, with some photos to illustrate but as of today I am taking a literal vacation for a couple of weeks and who knows how much I will be blogging. In the mean time cook a fun meal and share it with people you love, enjoy the warm summer days, and the fruits and vegetables that are a result of them.

These are from my friend Anna's yard, I think they are amazing and are a perfect gift of brightness. 

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Cucumber Mango Salsa

One of my favorite tomato less salsas is from The Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook. With the abundance of cucumbers I decided to make a salsa adapted from  the Black Bean Mango Salsa recipe.

Cucumber Mango Salsa

2 cucumbers 

1 mango

1 can of black beans

about a 1/4 of cup of chopped cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

1 large jalapeno

salt and pepper

Dice the mango and cucumbers. Chop up the jalapeno including as many seeds as you want for as spicy as you want. Add a drained and rinsed can of black beans, along with the cilantro and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy.

This is a great summer side We ate it with tortilla chips, and it's also quite delightful on top of fish. It's amazing how a little cucumber goes a long way. The cucumber gives a nice cooling fresh crunch that will relieve any warm day. I wish I had had more mango because the cucumber was more abundant but that didn't stop us from diving in with a tortilla chip in hand. 

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A Little Roasted Tomatoes And Zucchini For Breakfast

With the remaining cherry tomatoes, I woke up this morning thinking about roasting them. I love roasted tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are perfect because they don't take to long to roast and the roasting adds another depth of flavor to their perfect sweetness. I cut them in half and quarters and put them in a 400 degree oven, on a foil lined pan,  somewhere between 15-20 minutes until they get nice and soft and a little brown on top. While the tomatoes roasted I sauteed the two zucchini in a little olive oil and one slivered garlic clove until they had a nice tan color. Setting the veggies aside, I scrambled the eggs and then added the zucchini and tomatoes to the eggs when they were just about done. An easy filling breakfast.

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E.T. Phones Home For A Beach Potluck

Summer allows for lots of outside entertainment and a good part of the time it is free. In Long Beach we have Movies on the Beach, showing a free movie at a different part of the beach Monday through Thursday. It's a great way to get together and watch a cult classic like Pee Wee's Big Adventure with a bunch of people on a big screen. The last week of August they're playing Jaws all week, which is an appropriate way to end summer.

Last night we saw E.T which I probably have not seen in at least 15 years. It's such a great film to enjoy on a large screen and to be able to see it with a bunch of friends. All while enjoying a shared hodgepodge of food. In planning of what to bring I knew I wanted to make a dent in the cucumbers because I had so many, and use some of the  purple basil because it does not last long.

I found an caprese inspired salad that uses tomato, nectarine, and basil  but because it had to be something that traveled well I decided to just to throw everything together in a bowl. This could not be easier and the nectarines were so perfectly sweet that they complemented the tomatoes and basil.  The purple basil gave a dark contrast to the red, yellow, and white. This turned out really well and now I'm curious as to what other items I can add to a caprese salad.

I also made an elderflower cucumber drink that is really refreshing and not to sweet. I found elderflower syrup at Ikea yesterday, I had to return something, and thought it would be good mixed with the cucumber. Using 6 parts mineral water to one part syrup plus one cucumber.  I now might just start adding cucumbers to everything I drink. This is a great crisp drink that would cool any summer night especially in the company of friends and good movies.






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