Tag Archives: eggplant

Babaga-hummus

21 Jul

I am not a bean lover, but funny enough I love hummus.  I have shared with you already my basic hummus recipe when I shared my Hummus Sandwich recipe.  I love that it’s lemonier than versions you usually get in a Middle Eastern restaurant.

When we go to these Middle Eastern restaurants people assume that if you like hummus, you must like babaganoush too.  NOT!!!  I like eggplant, but I have given babaganoush many, many, many tries and I just can’t seem to enjoy it.  I have learned with time that I need to be in the mood to eat eggplant and babaganoush is simply not my thing.

So, apparently we are in eggplant season.  I’ve been receiving baby Japanese eggplants in my CSA box for weeks now.  I had 2 great specimens in my fridge before my retreat and I was afraid they would spoil before I would get back… so I decided to mix it in with my traditional (which is really non-traditional in the middle Eastern sense) and see how that played up.

The result??? 

  Babaga-hummus 2

BABAGA-HUMMUS

2 small Japanese eggplants, halved
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
About ¼ cup of parmesan cheese, grated
1 tsp paprika
The juice of 1 lime or criollo lemon – but if it’s not lemony enough I sometimes use 2
About 1 tsp salt – but I really eye-ball it…
About 5 cranks of the pepper mill
About ½ cup of olive oil

 

  1. Brush the eggplant halves with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place in a grill (I use my George Foreman grill) for about 10 minutes until you get nice grilled marks and the eggplants begins to soften.  Take the out of the grill and set aside for a little while.  The eggplant will continue to cook and soften somewhat.
  2. Grilled Eggplants 2
  3. In a large food processor mix the hummus ingredients – the chickpeas, parmesan cheese, paprika, lime juice, salt, and pepper.
  4. Scrape the flesh of the eggplant and add that to the hummus mixture… leave the eggplant skin behind.
  5. Process the whole mix and thru the cover chute, drizzle the olive oil until the mixture gains a creamy consistency.  Check for seasonings and pulse a few times more if you need to add anything else.

 

Serve this with whole grain pita bread or pita chips. 

 

I brought this to a pool party at my friend’s Ana Yolanda and everyone loved it, especially Valerie who’s only 3 years old.  Which proves my point that if you expose kids to different flavors early on, they’ll grow to develop great eating habits.

I’ve been receiving so many eggplants in my CSA box, that this has become my new version of hummus for picnics or get-togethers…  it’s a nice twist on my original recipe, with a tad of smokiness from the grilled eggplants.  I did it recently to participate in the Serious Eats Picnic Food roundup… 

Hope you enjoy it as much as Valerie did…

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Mediterranean Eggplant Stacks

28 Apr

Has it ever happened to you…  that  when you wish on something hard enough, the answer to your request will come to you automatically.  I am a firm believer in that…

Well, the other day I was feeling so-so, because my fridge was full of little somethings.  To the OCD part of me, that just drives me crazy.  I like order in my universe and that includes a clean, organized fridge.  I had some hummus left, I had eggplants that would start to spoil soon, I had an opened jar of roasted peppers, among others…  so, I sat down to watch my afternoon fix of Food Network and here comes Rachael with this 30-minute recipe for Mediterranean Eggplant Steaks – a vegetarian recipe good enough for meat-eating company…  my kind of recipe!!!

I tried the recipe that same night I learned, in fact, that I missed the olives in the original recipe…  and it turned out great.  I shared it with my neighbors and they were impressed.  They asked me to make this at an upcoming neighborly get-together…  nice, huh?   And if the Israeli neighbor liked it… it must be good, if not authentic.

Try it tonight…

 

 

 

 

MEDITERRANEAN EGGPLANT STACKS

1 medium eggplant, cut into 4 steaks lengthwise, about 1-inch thick
1 (10-ounce) box frozen spinach, defrosted
1 roasted red pepper, chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic, grated
1 cup of hummus, home-made or store-bought
1 cup whole-wheat or spelt bread crumbs
2 tbs fresh flat-leaf parsley
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

 

  1. Defrost spinach.    Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Heat a non-stick skillet to medium-high with about 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive in it.  Add roasted peppers and garlic to skillet.
  3. Squeeze the spinach dry and separate as you add it to the skillet. Season the spinach with salt and pepper and heat through.   Set aside.
  4. Brush the eggplant steaks lightly with extra-virgin olive oil and season liberally on both sides with salt and pepper.  
  5. In the same skillet you made the spinach and peppers, pan roast the eggplants 3 to 4 minutes for small eggplant, turning occasionally, until the steaks begin to become tender but are not fully cooked.
  6. Place the eggplants on baking sheets. Top each steak with a few forkfuls of spinach mixture.
  8. Spread a few rounded spoonfuls of hummus evenly across the steaks on top of the spinach, covering it completely in a thin layer.
  9. Toss the bread crumbs with 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and parsley. Divide the bread crumbs and scatter them over the steaks on top of the hummus.
  10. Bake for about 5 minutes or so,  to brown bread crumbs.

 

A note about eggplants:

I learned once from Martha Stewart and a guest on her show, Eleonora Scarpeta, that you should always buy the lightest eggplants you can find.  They should be light for their size – kind of like the opposite you would think, no?  The reason being that the lighter the eggplant, the less seeds it has and therefore the less bitterness it will have.  This fact is particularly important in this recipe where we cut the eggplants and cook it straight.   

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Potato and Fried Eggplant Pastelon

16 Feb

I’ve been trying to “crack my head open” trying to figure out a way to translate the word “pastelón” for you guys.  A pastelón is very similar to a casserole… but the difference being that things are mainly layered in instead of mixed all -together.   So I figured that if Rachael Ray can invent a word in “stewp”, I can just use the word “pastelón” and you’ll learn to embrace it.

Pastelón is pronounced  [pas-te-LON], and as I mentioned before, it consists of layers of ingredients, sometimes pre-cooked, sometimes raw and then baked off in the oven.

This is a new installment for the Potato Festival I mentioned a few posts ago…  I know, the translation thing should have not kept me for posting this, but I guess I got caught up in it.

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POTATO and FRIED EGGPLANT PASTELÓN

3 medium potatoes cut into 2″ pieces – you can use new, russet or red-skinned potatoes
 1 small eggplant – try to buy the lightest eggplant available*
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tbs sofrito
¼ – ½ cup of water
2 tbs butter
2 tbs cream cheese
4 tbs grated Parmesan cheese, divided
A splash of milk
¼ cup Italian cheese blend
Salt, Garlic Salt and Pepper to taste
Canola oil – to fry the eggplant

*  Note:  The lighter the eggplant, the less seeds it will have and the less bitterness it will have.

  1. In a medium sized saucepan with salted water, boil the potatoes until fork-tender.  I find the potatoes boil faster when I use as little water as possible…  I guess it’s a combination of boiling and steaming… I don’t even let the water cover the potatoes.  Just let the water come up halfway the potatoes.
  2. Then, you need to prepare the eggplant batter…  Mix together the flour, water, sofrito and season generously with salt and pepper.  Use enough water for the batter to have the consistency of pancake batter.  Set aside.
  3. In a skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil for frying.
  4. Slice the eggplant your favorite way – in rounds or in long slices.  Dunk the eggplant slices in the batter.  Clean up any drips and fry until golden brown. Drain the fried slices over paper towels to soak up any excess oil.  Set aside.
  6. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  7. When potatoes are done, drain any liquid leftover.  Mix in butter, cream cheese, 2 tbs of the Parmesan and milk.  Smash then until creamy soft.  Season with garlic salt and pepper.
  9. Pour half the mashed potatoes in a buttered casserole dish.  Add in the fried eggplant slices creating a layer.  Sprinkle a bit of Parmesan cheese (optional).  Add in the remaining mashed potatoes.  Top with the last of the remaining Parmesan and the shredded cheese mix.

pastelon-papa-inside.jpg

10.  Bake in oven for about 30 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted and golden brown and the flavors meld. 

 

pastelon-papa-y-berenjena-slice.jpg

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Eggplant Parmesan

13 Nov

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I love to invite friends over to dinner. This gives me the opportunity to try out new recipes. Conventional knowledge would tell you not to try new recipes on guests… experiment on your own first and then share with others. Well, you know what, I don’t agree.

This is an eggplant recipe that I created by mixing and matching elements of several other recipes I have seen and tasted and I even experimented something I had never tried before and actually turned out really good. I wanted to do Eggplant in my latest dinner party because my best friend Ana Yolanda is an eggplant FAN. I made enough so she would have left overs… a testament to the quality of the results and a shame for her, but her husband ate ALL of the leftovers.

Don’t worry Ana, I’ll make it again JUST FOR YOU!!!

EGGPLANT PARMESAN
serves about 8

3-4 medium eggplants**, unpeeled, sliced in about 1/2 inch-thick slices
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups of seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese plus more for sprinkling in between eggplant layers
Salt and Pepper
1/2 cup marinara sauce
fresh mozzarella cheese for the topping

**I learned that you should try to get as light an eggplant as you can find to ensure they have the least amount of seeds and minimize any bitterness

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
  2. Dunk the eggplant slices in the buttermilk for like half a minute. This will give the eggplant slices something sticky so the breadcrumbs stick.
  3. Place breadcrumbs in a shallow dish.  Coat the eggplant slices with the breadcrumbs. Set aside for a few minutes to let the coating stick a bit.
  4. Heat a very thin layer of olive oil in a skillet. (Note: you’ll need a good amount of oil, because the eggplants will soak it. But you need to add a little bit with each batch so the eggplants brown.  If not, they’ll just boil and become limp.)  Fry the eggplant slices in batches.  Set aside and drain on paper towels.
  5. In a bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, half-and-half, most of the Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
  6. In a large glass pyrex, spoon a bit of sauce at the bottom, place a shingled layer of fried eggplants, smear the ricotta mixture all over, spoon a bit more marinara sauce, place a second layer of fried eggplants, spoon the last of the marinara sauce and top it all off with the remaining Parmesan cheese.  Finish off with the slices of fresh mozzarella cheese.
  7. Place the pyrex in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the cheese on top is browned and sauce bubbly.
  8. Let it rest for a little while because it can burn if you eat it right away. Serve warm.

Instead of marinara sauce, I made a marinated tomatoes sauce.  Simple, mix together all these ingredients and let the flavors marry while the eggplants are frying – Crushed Tomatoes (try for them to be in a jar and not a can – you know, less additives), Olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil and minced fresh garlic. 

I served this with spinach fetuchinni and sweet plantains.  I will share these recipes in following posts.  Oh, and with the roasted garlic breadsticks.   But you can mix and match as you’d like.

Buon Appetito.

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