Eggplant Parmigiana

We went to Yosemite National Park this summer and while there we ate at the Curry Village dining room at our campsite which has a buffet style restaurant.  I had never really tasted eggplant parmigiana before as it always looked sort of soggy to me. Since it was one of the only vegetarian entree options that night I decided to give it a try and it was very good! Last night was my second time trying it and I have to say, mine was much better;)

Italian Eggplant

I compiled a few recipes from Bobby Flay to Mario Batali to Martha Stewart but didn't really follow any of them.  If you want very specific instructions (not my strong suit!), google one of their recipes.  I did get some tips on a message board and someone posted this blog fxcuisine as it gives a tutorial on how to prepare the eggplant. A good read.
 

Sweating the eggplant slices

It is a very important step to sweat the eggplant slices with salt for 30 minutes to one hour before you fry them up to get all the excess water out. Don't skip this step.


Ingredients & Preparation: Serves 4

• 1 large Italian eggplant
• kosher salt
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs, whisked
• oregano and parsley, to taste
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 - 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
• grapeseed oil, for frying (use enough to cover the bottom of your pan and then a little more)
• 1 jar good quality pasta sauce
• mozzarella cheese
• spaghetti

Wash the eggplant and chop off the ends - no need to peel it. Slice the eggplant lengthwise (should yield about 8 slices).  Cover the front and back in kosher salt and leave in a colander to drain for 30 mins to one hour. Wash the salt off the eggplant and press dry with paper towels. Preheat the oven to 375F. Whisk the eggs up with your herbs. I used the prepare herbs that come in the squeeze tubes so it would blend well when whisked. I'm sure fresh herbs would work as well, just chop them up into fine pieces so they stick.  Add some paremsan to your breadcrumbs.  Next, dredge each slice in the flour, then the egg mixture and then the breadcrumbs.  Place carefully into your hot pan with the grapeseed oil. Keep it hot to fry but not enough to burn and smoke. Once they are brown on each side transfer to a baking dish lined with papertowels to soak up the excess oil. You will have to do this in batches. Remove the papertowel and eggplant slices and pour some of the sauce into the bottom. Next layer the eggplant (fan the slices out so it covers the dish) and in between each slice add some more parmesan cheese and tomato sauce. Top the entire thing with mozzarella cheese. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes and then broil the top for a couple minutes after that.   In the meantime, boil water and make some spaghetti noodles to serve with it.

Once the eggplant is baked, serve one or two slices with the steaming spaghetti, add some more tomato sauce and enjoy!

Super Bowl Menu: Hash Brown Casserole, 7 Layer Salad & Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing

Well, I have only a couple of hours to finish everything up, pack up the husband, baby & dog and head over to my brother-in-law's house for the game. Football isn't really my thing, but my in laws love it so I go for the socializing. But who's kidding who here? It's really because I like the food. As a non meat eater in a carnivorous family, I like to contribute to the menu so that a) I have something to eat and b) I can see how long it takes my Father-in-law to realize that it's not "real" bacon that he's eating!

While I can't say what everyone else is bringing - here are my contributions:

- 7 Layered Salad with homemade Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing
- Veggie burgers (Yves brand)
- Hash brown Casserole with Faux Bacon, Onions & Cheese
- Brownies (from a box - we all cheat sometimes)

Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing

*try using an old mason or pasta sauce jar to make your dressing in...

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup 2% plain yogurt
• 3/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp green onion or chives, finely chopped
  
• 2-3 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped
  
• 1 tbsp fresh tarragon, finely chopped
• salt (to taste)
• white pepper (to taste)

Put the liquid ingredients in your jar first, then the remaining ingredients. Stir up or shake madly. Let the flavours infuse for a few hours or overnight.


The 7 Layer Salad

This was supposed to be a vegetarian Cobb salad - you can see it is not. All I can say is that of the 2 stores and 4 avocados I bought, 0/4 could be used. Instead it became a layered salad made from a variety of ingredients.

From the bottom up...

Iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, chick peas, green leaf lettuce, boiled egg, green onion.

This will be served with the Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing so that will make it much better.


Hash Brown Casserole with Faux Bacon, Onion and Cheese

I pretty much followed this recipe from Cooking Light but used fake bacon (Yves brand) and I eliminated the green onions. I also used 2% plain yogurt instead of sour cream because I had it leftover from the dressing recipe.

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1120354

Not Ratatouille's Ratatouille

What a dish! There are 2 reasons I made ratatouille today. The first is because I had it on Monday for lunch at a local restaurant and it was very tasty and the second reason is because I bought the cutest casserole dish today that needed to be used stat!

I had no recipe for this and made it based on my memory of the taste from the version I had on Monday. At first I thought I would add mushrooms but those were never used...one thing I did learn from a French cooking site was to put coarse salt on the eggplant pieces before I used them as it helps them to cook a little better (removes the moisture, I guess).

Do you remember Ratatouille's ratatouille? It was perfectly layered which makes it a lot different than mine! I call this a traditional recipe (except for the addition of goat's cheese) as it is more of a stew. For a good version of a layered ratatouille see Smitten Kitchen's post here http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/

Ingredients & Preparation:

Serves 4-6

• 1 large eggplant, cut into chunks
• 1 red pepper, cut into slices
• 1 green pepper,cut into slices
• 1 yellow or red onion, diced
• 3 small zucchini, chopped into rounds and then halved
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• few swirls of olive oil
• knob of butter
• 1 28 oz can organic whole tomatoes
• 1 28 oz can organic crushed tomatoes
• 1 5.5 can tomato paste
• coarse salt for eggplants
• black pepper to taste
• goat's cheese to taste
• 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• handful of fresh basil
• 4 sprigs fresh oregano
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

I tried to use only local organic ingredients for this dish. All the herbs (except the bay leaves) are from my humble, front porch garden.

So, first things first. Chop/slice up your peppers, zucchini, and eggplant. Dice your onion. Put your eggplant in a bowl or colander and put some coarse salt over it. Add some paper towels to soak up the water. Let this sit for about 20-30 mins. In the meantime, cook up the onions and garlic in a frying pan with a few swirls of olive oil and the knob of butter.

You can use fresh tomatoes in this recipe but I'm not sure how to explain that to you since I used canned toms (cheater!). Open up your canned tomatoes and pour the whole ones into a bowl. Press the water out of the whole tomatoes (I used a potato masher) since you don't want your sauce to be too thin.

In a heavy bottom, large pot, add a couple swirls of olive oil. Add your peppers and zucchini and cook for a couple of minutes. Add your eggplant and cook for another couple of minutes. Now add your onions and garlic that you previously sauteed.

Pre-heat your oven to 375F.

Pour the crushed tomatoes and the whole tomatoes into the pot with the other veggies and stir it up. Now add the tomato paste. Add the red wine vinegar. Stir. At this point I add the bay leaves, thyme (just the leaves) and oregano (just the leaves chopped up). Add some pepper to taste. I didn't add any extra salt as the tomatoes had salt added and the eggplant had salt on it already. Let that heat all the way through.

Pour the stew into an oven safe casserole dish. Dot the goat cheese around the stew. I rolled the cheese into little balls and place 6 around the edge and one in the middle. Place the casserole in the centre of the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes.

Once it is ready, add some fresh basil on top. Serve with a great piece of fresh French bread & big glass of wine. Be careful not to serve anyone a bay leaf with their portion!

Cheesy Cauliflower Gratin

Wow. I never would have believed it but my husband has managed to amaze me with this one. He has claimed that this VEGETABLE recipe is now firmly planted on his top 5 list for favorite meals. Admittedly, this dish is so delicious that you completely forget it is cauliflower, but I am still quite shocked!

In my continued effort to not eat meat (again, a post is needed for this - soon, soon!), I am trying some new ideas at the dinner table. I saw this recipe on French Food at Home, with the ever delightful Laura Calder, before our vacation and vowed to try it when we got back. The episode was "Truckstop French". I changed a couple of things just slightly. The results? Amazing comfort food.

Link here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauliflower for everything you don't know about cauliflower.

Ingredients & Preparation: (from Laura Calder's French Food at Home, Food Network TV)

Serves 4 as a side

• 1 1/2 cups milk (I used skim and it was perfect)
• 1 x bay leaf (I used 3 as they were a bit old and not very fresh)
• 1 clove garlic split
• 3 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup grated gruyère cheese (I used extra old white cheddar and mozzarella)
• Sea salt and pepper to taste (I used white pepper - love the flavour)
• 1 lb. cauliflower florettes
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs (I used Japanese panko crumbs instead - excellent!)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Make the sauce: Bring the milk to a simmer in a saucepan with the bay leaf and garlic. Cover, turn off the heat, and let infuse, about 15 minutes. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook for a minute to remove the raw flour taste. Gradually whisk in the milk. Cook, stirring, until thick. Stir in the cheese, season with salt and pepper, and reserve.

Heat the oven to 425°F/210°C. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Salt it, as for pasta, and blanch cauliflower until just shy of being tender, about 5 minutes. Drain well. Pat dry with a tea-towel. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with the sauce and dump into a gratin dish. Scatter over the breadcrumbs (or panko) and Parmesan and bake until bubbling and gratinéed on top.

I served the gratin with some Indian-inspired lentils and a green salad. Supreme!

Meatless Shepherd's Pie

This is so easy to make! It's something I just made up one day and my husband loved it so I've been making it ever since. It's healthy and delicious.

Ingredients & Preparation:

"Meat"

• 2 packages of Yves Veggie Ground Round (Italian)
• enough olive oil to stop things from sticking!
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 package of mushrooms, sliced
• salt & pepper to taste
• a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce - please be aware that most of these sauces contain anchovies, so if you are a vegetarian (and i'm sure you'd know this already!) try to find one without any anchovies or skip this step altogether. Thanks to Les for this tidbit!

Mashed Potato

• 6-7 medium potatoes (russet or yukon gold), peeled
• milk or cream to taste (I used creme fraiche this time)
• 2 tablespoons of butter or to taste
• salt & pepper to taste
• chives
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese for the topping

I like to make my mashed potatoes first, usually a day ahead of time if I'm busy so I'm not doing everything on the same night. If you are doing them on the same day, make your mashed potatoes before any of the other steps. Once those are finished, set aside. Preheat oven to 375 F.

Cook up all your vegetables until soft in some olive oil - start the onions first as they take longer. Once finished, set aside in a bowl. In the same pan, heat the veggie "meat" with salt, pepper and Worcestershire until warmed through. Transfer the "meat" to a corningware and pack it down a little, add the mashed potatoes next and then top with some cheese.

Pop into the oven for 20 minutes until bubbly. Move to the top rack and broil for another 2 minutes or so until the cheese is golden.

Enjoy!