Egg-cellent Eggplant with Simple Summer Sauce

Egg-cellent Eggplant with Simple Summer Sauce (oh, how I crack myself up!)

Are you a lover of the eggplant?  Are you an “mmm….I kinda like it, but I don’t love it” person?  Do you tend to prefer it dipped in egg, then breadcrumbs, then fried to a glorious brown crustiness and then slathered in marinara and parmesan…HALT!  A delicious and still healthy alternative is about to be revealed!  

Eggplant is one of those veggies that Mama Lanette has been experimenting with in many variations over the years, determined to not just tolerate it, but to really enjoy it and look forward to preparing it and eating it (SOB be damned!).  Every time I stand in line at the grocery checkout lane and the person before me has an eggplant, I just can’t help myself.   I have to ask them, “How do you prepare that?”  Yes, I am one of THOSE people.   After the initial odd look, the resultant answers are varied, none of which have been satisfactory.    I think it is one of those things that unless you grow up eating it on a regular basis, it is a hard one to develop a true fondness for.   Well, hahaha, once Mama Lanette tells herself she is going to like something, she will find a way, oh yes she will.*

Not only is this eggplant the tastiest way I’ve ever cooked it;  creamy, smoky, rich, still somewhat firm in consistency, so it holds own against any sauce you throw upon it,  it is also the EASIEST AND SIMPLIST way I have ever prepared it.  Simply throw the whole thing on the grill and let it sit, only turning it occasionally.  Thank you BA Magazine…you are truly worthy of your subscription fees!    I have included my favorite height of tomato season simple tomato sauce to top it off.   It is literally a tomato bomb exploding in your mouth, or so I’ve been told (and I agree).   I hope you will not be disappointed.  This is truly one to please the eyes and the palate, I believe.   Please try, and as always, we welcome feedback!

Egg-cellent Eggplant

Ingredients: 

Eggplant.  If a main course, 1 medium eggplant per person. **

Instructions:

Throw a whole eggplant on a grill.  Do not pierce or poke holes, just set entire eggplant, intact, upon the grill at high heat.  Cook it up until it looks gross and all burnt up, approximately 30 minutes, turning carefully occasionally so all sides cook evenly.  Carefully remove from grill and place upon a plate.  Let rest  for a few minutes.  Remove skin, leaving the stem intact.  Let sit for about 20 minutes so juices separate.    That’s it.  Really, that’s it.

Simple Summer Sauce
Makes sauce for two medium eggplants, or for use over pasta, or in Mama Lanette’s world, one eggplant for ML and one serving of pasta for the SOB.

Ingredients:

Cherry Tomatoes, 2 pints.  If you are fortunate to grow your own or have access to a farmer’s market, please utilize!  It makes such a difference in the flavor.  For this blog, I used a combination of sungold and some purple cherry tomatoes.  The sauce was phenomenal in flavor.

Olive Oil, three turns around the pan.

Basil, fresh, from my garden*** (if you don’t have your own fresh, use according to your availability of fresh or dried, and preferred taste)  For this recipe I used approximately ½ cup fresh sliced basil.

Parsley, fresh from my garden (if you don’t have your own fresh, use according to your availability of fresh or dried, and preferred taste)  For this recipe, I used approximately ¼ cup fresh parsley.

Oregano, fresh from my garden (if you don’t have your own fresh, use according to your availability of fresh or dried, and preferred taste)  For this recipe, I used approximately four sprigs of fresh oregano.

Garlic, two cloves, minced or pressed (really, you haven’t gotten a garlic press yet? *judgmental stare*)

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Instructions:

After removing eggplant from grill, place cast iron skillet on grill.  Drizzle three turns of olive oil around pan and add tomatoes.  Close lid of grill.  Let tomatoes sizzle and start bursting, opening lid and tossing tomatoes occasionally so they cook evenly.  Once tomatoes are mostly burst, add garlic and 2/3 of basil, oregano, and parsley to top of pan.  Close lid and continue cooking for three more minutes.  Open lid and stir, lightly smashing tomatoes in process.  Don’t overly smash, you want a chunky, rustic sauce, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll squirt yourself in the eye with hot bursting cherry tomato juice…not pleasant. Remove pan from heat (use potholders!).  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over eggplant or pasta.

To assemble eggplant in photo:

Carefully drain excess juices from eggplant.  I drain them into the tomato sauce, as it usually gets pretty thick and can be thinned out a bit anyway.  Using a knife, carefully cut a slit down the middle of each eggplant and spread outwards.  Spoon sauce onto eggplants.  Sprinkle with reserved herbs and some parmesan cheese.  Drizzle balsamic glaze or plain balsamic vinegar on top.  Serve.  Oh my goodness, this is truly delicious and so very good for you at the same time, and it is beautiful at the same time.  ENJOY!!!

Next week,freaks!  <3  Mama Lanette

*Disclaimer:  This has not yet happened with salmon, and yes, Mama Lanette has had it prepared every way known to man, canned, frozen, freshly caught that very morning, grilled, smoked, steamed, etc., please stop telling me I haven’t had it cooked the right way.  All you do is piss me off and make me want to bitch slap you.

** How do I pick a good eggplant?  A good eggplant should feel heavy for its size and be free of bruises and wrinkles. 

***If you don’t have access to fresh herbs and are going to use dried, use half the amount called for in fresh.  For example, ½ cup fresh basil = ¼ cup dried basil.  Also, for this recipe, leave out the dried oregano and just use dried basil and parsley. Oregano is quite strong once dried and needs a bit of time to incorporate.  This is a simple sauce and is quick and easy, just leave it out.  It will still be delicious!

JoJo's Spaghetti Squash Boats

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the pause again! Mama Lanette and I are finding that this blog is more work than we expected! That's not a bad thing, but we need to work better at getting our two recipes a week in! But I'm happy to say that we're coming back with what I think is a really good recipe! Let's get to it!

Ingredients:
2 small spaghetti squash (Or one medium)
1 pound of meat of your choice. We picked some ground Italian pork because it was cheap. But feel free to do ground turkey or whatever you want.
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1/2 cup of chopped green pepper
1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon of dried basil
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
3 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella, or cheese of choice
Salt and Pepper to taste

First preheat your oven to 375 degrees. As your oven is preheating cut your spaghetti squash in half. Now if you have a medium one this can be a struggle. There's been a few times where I could be found sitting on the kitchen floor with my knife fully stuck in a spaghetti squash trying to bang it on the floor to get it all the way through. It gets easier though! But as I was saying, you're going to want to cut the squashes in half and then gut the seeds out of it. Like a cantaloupe! Once that is done you will place them gut side down on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

While those are cooking, start browning your meat of choice. Don't worry about seasoning it this point, just brown it and drain it. As you're cooking that, take the time to dice up your onions, tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. Make sure to dice them small, but not small enough to be considered minced.







Once the ground meat is done, remove from the stove and drain all grease. We will then add all of the chopped veggies and seasonings. We will cook these on low until the onion is cooked fully and the flavors get a good mixture.

Depending on how long this takes, your squash should be done or close to done. Remove the squash from the oven and give it 5-10 minutes to cool. It will still be hot to the touch after this but not so much where you can't touch it when needed. Flip the squash over and, using a fork, scrape out the insides. Now make sure you leave some inside because we will be using the "shell" later on. Take about a cup out of each half if using two small ones, or two cups of each if using a big one.





Add the squash into the skillet with the meat mixture and mix well. Cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until all liquid has evaporated. Make sure to mix once about every two minutes.








As you are cooking the mixture, take time to shred the cheese. You might have bought preshredded too, but just so you do know, the way that they keep that cheese from clumping in that bag is they add wood pulp. Cleaner foods equals a better you!








Once you are done with the cheese and your meat mixture, take the four, or two, shells that you have and equally put the meat mixture in the squash shells. Bake these at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Once those are done add your cheese and bake for about another 5 minutes.






And there you go! Not only do you have an amazing dinner that tastes oh so good, but you are also eating something healthy! And this is something that you can play with and make healthier if you wanted.

And as an extra treat I have a second recipe for you. Now this is something that I literally dreamed up. I've really been thinking about rice bowls lately. Trying to figure out a way to make them with spaghetti squash. I don't really have pictures for step by step since I wasn't even making this for the blog, but after eating it and seeing how good it was I wanted to share. Not only did this get the thumbs up by BBB, but my picky eater friend Stephy Bee also nommed this down!

Ingredients:
Four cups of spaghetti squash
One cup of frozen peas
One cup of carrots chopped up
One cup of cabbage shredded
4 eggs
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
3 tablespoons of water

Bake spaghetti squash with the same instructions of above recipe. As squash is baking, heat up sesame oil and saute the veggies. Once squash is done, take a fork to it and get about four cups of "noodles" out. Mix veggies and squash into a decent size bowl. Take soy sauce, brown sugar, and water and mix together, and then pour into the squash and veggies and mix well. Set aside and fry up your four eggs. Split the squash mixture into four different bowls and lay one fried egg onto each bowl. EAT AWAY!!!

Ratatouille

Bon jour from Mama Lanette! As a grand finale to the first week of Feeding the Freaks, I am
challenging Alyssa JoJo’s Vegetable Tian with Ratatouille. When she first told me about her
Vegetable Tian recipe, I was like, “Yeahhhh….that jut sounds like Ratatouille was given a fancy
pants name if you ask me…” Thus was born our first cook off.

Ratatouille is a French dish made from eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and
garlic, and featured in a very popular animated film (wink, wink, to those of you with children).
It is an especially economical dish to prepare during late summer in Minnesota, as zucchini and
eggplant are quite plentiful at your local farmer’s market, along with tomatoes and peppers. If
you are a lover of all that is vegetable, as Mama Lanette is, you will love Ratatouille. If you are
 somewhat skeptical about eggplant or zucchini, it may not be the dish for you. The S.O.B won’t
get within 15 feet of either no matter what I tell him they are, thus his freshly-honed, Rainman-
like skills for differentiating cucumbers from zucchini in salad. There are many variations of this
dish, so I pulled together the elements I liked best from several recipes and created something
new and hopefully tasty. It was a little more work than some of the other recipes I found,
where the entire dish is made in one pot, but I am always up to a challenge and am hoping the
presentation makes the extra effort worth it! Taking the high temperatures of Minnesota in
late August/early September into consideration, however, the one pot method may be more
desirable, as heating the oven (and by default, the house) is not required. Enjoy!

(read below for my update after making the dish)

Ingredients
1/2 pound zucchini, scrubbed, and sliced into 1/8-inch slices
1/2 pound eggplant, scrubbed, and sliced into thin (3/8-inch) slices, about 4-inches by 1-inch
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound thinly sliced yellow onions
1 sliced green bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 small bay leaf
1 pound ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, juiced, and sliced into strips
½ to 1 cup shredded fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray two cookie sheets with olive oil or vegetable oil spray. Put the
zucchini and eggplant slices on the cookie sheets. Brush very lightly with olive oil, and bake until
slightly brown on each side.


In a skillet, cook onions and peppers slowly in 2 tablespoons olive
oil for about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic, bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in tomatoes
and basil. Cover and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. Remove the cover and cook
at medium to high heat until juice is reduced.
Remove the bay leaf and discard.





 Put 1/3 of tomato mixture in the bottom of a casserole. Arrange 1/2 of the eggplant and zucchini on top,then half of the remaining tomato mixture. Put the rest of the eggplant and zucchini down,and
top with the remaining tomato mixture. Drizzle with olive oil top with salt and pepper. Cover
casserole dish and bake at 400 for approximately 30 minutes. Let rest before serving so the
dish has time to set. Serve with a crusty French bread and good butter!

Variations:
Top with cheese such as goat cheese, parmesan, or whatever you have handy and like the taste
of.
Use yellow squash in addition to zucchini.
No basil? Use parsley!

The Final Verdict: The presentation was so NOT worth the extra effort. While this dish was
delicious, the three separate steps of roasting, sautéing, and baking really made it a pain
in the ass. I don’t have a dishwasher, so the extra dirty pans were not appreciated. I also
do not have central air, so turning on the oven and stove when it is 94 degrees with 80%
Minnesota humidity in my standing-fan-only ventilated kitchen really pissed me off. What was
I thinking?!? Presentation? Who cares when it is so freaking HOT outside! Like I don’t have
better things to do with my life on a Friday night than chop vegetables and roast to death?
Thank goodness for my icy cold pal Mr. Riesling or I may have simply overheated and passed
out (from the heat, not the Riesling…shut up you, and you know who you are). In reality,
Alyssa JoJo’s Vegetable Tian looked much better in presentation, and her recipe sounded much
simpler. Don’t get me wrong, my Ratatouille really was delicious, and I especially enjoyed
eating it in front of the S.O.B. He despises eggplant and zucchini, and watching his gag reflex
kick in always makes me giggle. I think this is a recipe that needs to be revisited in the one pot
version…perhaps next summer.

So, to end the first week of Feeding The Freaks…A Family Fiasco, the coveted Flying Freak Flag
goes to…*drum roll*… Alyssa JoJo!!!!! Job well done my pookie boo! You made more with less,
and that is always a win in Mama Lanette’s opinion. See you at next week’s fiasco, my fellow
freaks! Au Revoir, Mama Lanette