When you go shopping, do you always know exactly what you’re going to do with the veggies you buy? Sometimes I do, but oftentimes I have no plans, other than knowing we haven’t had [insert vegetable name here!] in awhile and I’ll make something with it. That was the case here, with 2 beautiful small globe eggplants in my refrigerator. As I’m writing this, I’m remembering that last night we went out to dinner to a local Italian restaurant and I ordered a grilled vegetable salad (small) for my entrée. It contained green and yellow squash in microscopic thin slices and two thin rounds of eggplant. And the eggplant didn’t look like it had been grilled, but perhaps it had. It was very disappointing. I was expecting some red bell peppers, some onions maybe, or even some fennel. None of those. Just zucchini and eggplant.

But, I digress. My DH is crazy about eggplant parmesan, and when we go out to dinner and it’s on a restaurant menu, he’ll very often order it. I like it too, but I know (as a cook we know these things, right?) that eggplant parmesan is usually just loaded in fat/oil because of frying the eggplant. I don’t think restaurant chefs are at all cautious about how much oil they use – and eggplant is a particularly “bad” vegetable for soaking up anything you put it in – like oil! So, when I decided to make this salad or side veggie, I tried to be very aware of how much oil I was using. And I probably did use about 4 T. Maybe a bit more. And that’s a lot, although this made enough to serve about 6 people, probably. So maybe it wasn’t all that bad after all. But I ate a lot of it – so that negates my theory! I’ve also taken the leftovers out of the refrigerator and eaten this as a snack. It was really good, obviously, if I’d do that!

So what did I do? Using a Frugal Gourmet recipe as my starting point, I followed some of his suggestions, but then I veered off and did my own thing. I salted the eggplant and let it sit for half an hour or so while I got the rest of our dinner ready. Then, I rinsed it off and dried the slices on towels (don’t use terrycloth or lint will stick to the eggplant – use a dishtowel type or paper towels). Using a large, flat nonstick skillet, I poured in about a T. of grapeseed oil (that’s my oil of choice for cooking) and sautéed the eggplant on both sides, adding another T. of oil when I turned them over. Place them on paper towels when you’re done to soak up a bit of the excess oil, if there is any. I didn’t really have much, so I put them directly onto a serving platter.

Meanwhile, I mixed up some Greek nonfat yogurt, mashed garlic, lime juice, some crushed oregano, salt and pepper and kept adding lime juice until it tasted “right,” then let it sit until the eggplant was done. If you have time, mix this up ahead of time so the garlic will permeate all of the sauce. I spread the eggplant all over the serving plate and spooned the sauce on each piece, then garnished with some fresh mint from my garden. It was very pretty, I thought. I served it just barely warm. It also is good cold. I layered the pieces into a refrigerator container and after they’d chilled, they actually can be removed fairly easily and the plate recreated, which I did a couple of nights later. As leftovers, the yogurt mixture (already spread on the eggplant) had turned a kind of icky brownish color. I suppose it absorbed some of color from the eggplant skin. Next time I’d keep the topping separate and replenish it as leftovers. Or maybe the best thing is to eat it all up in the first sitting!

What I liked: the flavor was delicious, even leftover it was still delicious. The topping is also good with the garlic and mint and lime juice. I liked it all lot.

What I didn’t like: just keep the topping separate if you think you’ll have leftovers as the topping looks unappealing after a couple of days residing in the refrigerator. Be careful about adding too much oil when you sauté it – it will soak up whatever you pour around it!

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Lately I’ve been on a roll making Aarti Sequeira’s recipes from the Food Network. On this particular show she made a vegetarian meal (a fruit salad, a lentil and rice dish [the main course] and this eggplant salad). They all sounded delicious. I had a beautiful eggplant in my refrigerator which needed to be used (given to me by a friend, Roberta, from her garden). With just one relatively small (globe type) eggplant, I knew it was going to need some additions to make it stretch to serve more than just the two of us. We’d invited a friend over for dinner, so I needed enough to serve 3. That’s just about how much this made, half of the below recipe. Maybe it could stretch to serve 4, but that would be it. The regular recipe would serve at least 6. In the Indian language this dish is called Baingan Bharta. I’ll never remember that – that’s why it’s just “Indian Eggplant Salad.”

This recipe has a significant amount of onion in it. And it’s mixed up at the end with Greek yogurt. And oh gosh, is it ever fantastic. The sweetness that comes from long, slow cooking of the onion, the eggplant, which is roasted in a 500° oven for about 45 minutes, and a few Indian spices. I can already tell you I’m going to be very unhappy when the little bowl of this is gone. I scraped the big frying pan clean with my finger to get the last little bit of residual eggplant.

The onions are cooked in peanut oil until they’re really golden brown. Not burned – watch that carefully – but nicely golden in color. Then you add in the roasted, peeled and cubed eggplant. Add in the spices last (garlic, turmeric, ground cumin, fresh cilantro, salt and pepper – – and if you can handle the heat, add in a serrano or jalapeno pepper).  It’s cooked very briefly, then you add the Greek yogurt (I used Fage non-fat – make sure you DO use Greek yogurt – it’s strained and quite thick – regular yogurt would make this dish far too thin) and it’s finished. You can serve it while it’s warm, or cool to room temp. It has the consistency of Greek yogurt (obviously) but the eggplant is very soft, and so are the onions.

What I like about it: the textures – soft (the eggplant, onions and yogurt), sweet (the onions), spicy (turmeric and cumin) all in one bite. It’s easy to make too, although it does take more than an hour to bake and prepare everything. Next time I’ll be making a double batch. It’s that good.

What I didn’t like: not a single thing. You do need to like soft food, though. Because the eggplant is thoroughly roasted, it’s almost a mush, but not quite. There isn’t anything chewy or crunchy here. A lovely side dish to serve with something more substantial. I served it with Tandoori chicken and Aarti’s lentil-rice dish you’ll read about in a day or two.

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For most of my life I associated grits with the bland, icky-tasting pablum type stuff served to me when I was 14, on the cross-country trip I took with my parents when we moved from San Diego to Newport, Rhode Island. Sidebar: we moved back to California 3 years later when my dad’s project was completed. If you want to read a bit more about those years, click over to this post.  This was in the late 1950’s and a loooong time ago, obviously. My mother never made grits. I never made grits. Based on that stuff I ate at one breakfast somewhere in the south, it soured me on grits for near-on 35 years. I suppose some people in the south are willing to eat the plain grits that have nothing but cornmeal grits and water, boiled until it’s thick. Maybe a dash of salt. It tastes something like cream of wheat with nothing at all on it – no milk, no butter, no nuthin’ as they say. The grits I ate had a little pat of butter. It was awful. I think the waitress insisted that I needed to cover it well with pepper. Hmm. But then I discovered polenta in the 1980’s and learned that polenta and grits are almost the same thing. But there’s grits – and then there’s grits.

Now I love grits. Not that I make them all that often, because I don’t like them unless they’re loaded with flavor that comes from cheese and butter. These grits fall into that category. Probably not all that good for us. But gosh, are they ever GOOD! I tried to give myself a smaller portion that you can see in the above photo. That was Dave’s portion which made for a better photo. It went with the Picadillo I’d prepared, which I ladled on top of the grits. Really delicious.

What I liked: the buttery, rich taste. I almost never eat them alone – it’s usually just a “bed” for something else. But you certainly could eat them alone.

What I didn’t like: can’t say there was anything. You have to not mind the kind of cream-of-wheat texture, though. If you don’t like that, you’ll surely not like grits in any way, shape or form!

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The other day I got an email from one of the nice people at Freida’s Produce. They’ve contacted me a few times over the last couple of years, offering to send me some new or interesting produce to try, and hoping I’ll mention it here on my blog. I’ve always said yes, because I do like their products. Generally they offer me some unusual things, which I enjoy trying. This time it was potatoes. Really? Yup. I knew they were small potatoes, but that was about it.

They sent me two packages (1 1/2 pounds each) with the above being one of them. Called the “Terrific Trio,” because (pictured below) it had white, red skinned and purple potatoes in it. They come from a small producer in Canada, actually. A company called The Little Potato Company. Run by a WOMAN! Good for her!

What I liked about the first package I tried was the potatoes were already washed and ready to cook. All I had to do was clip open the bag and I was ready to go. This particular package I liked because of the variety of potatoes all in that one package contained – the yellow, white and the purple. There’s something fun about eating a purple potato, don’t you think? And I liked the small package size – just enough for a meal for 4. There are other packages from the same company – single potato types, not the mixture. They’re available at Ralphs during this potato season.

Down to brass tacks . . . did they taste different? No. But they’re uniformly small, and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to wash or scrub them. I ended up cutting them in half to make the below roasted potato mixture, because I like those cut edges with the crispy browning on them. I will seek these out – mostly because of the 3-potato variety all in one bag AND the fact that it’s a small package. I won’t have to buy 3 or 5 pounds of potatoes. According to their website, they also offer a product called Zingers – a small, microwaveable package with a seasoning packet inside – pop the package in the oven with the seasoning and you have potatoes in a matter of minutes.

So what did I make with them? Roasted potatoes, but with a little twist to them. What could be different about roasting potatoes, you ask? Well, just a little technique of roughening-up the potatoes a bit so they crisp up more in the oven. A great idea. One I’ll use again.

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It’s been awhile since I’d made anything with quinoa (keen-wah). It’s a highly nutritious grain, with not a lot of flavor until you pair it with other things. It has a delicious chewy, almost crunchy but not quite, texture. It’s loaded with protein. Yes, protein, not just carbohydrates, although it has a rather high amount of carbs too! And with calories, also, actually. I was astounded when I totaled up this salad mixture and saw how many calories and grams of carbs were in a serving – most of them coming from the quinoa! So the lesson to be learned here is that you want small servings. I had it for lunch today and after eating little more than 1/3 cup, I was full.

This recipe came from the Los Angeles Times Food Section, back about 18 months ago, when the Times did a one-year retrospective (in January) of all their favorite recipes from 2009. This recipe was one of those. So does that tell you it’s something special? Yup, it is.

There are a few steps to making this, but if you take the time, you’ll be rewarded with a very special dish. For me, the star of the dish is the shiitake mushrooms. I didn’t use enough of them (didn’t use as much as the recipe called for), which was a mistake. Next time I’ll use the full 2 cups of shiitakes. They get cooked briefly in a hot wok (or frying pan), with some green onions added in at the end. Some fresh fennel gets caramelized too (separately, but in the same pan). The quinoa you make in a separate pan.  You probably can rinse it in a bowl loaded with water, and try your best to use your hand to keep the quinoa grains from going down the drain as you hold your hand on the bowl. Once the quinoa was cooked I was able to tip the pan a bit and spoon out the excess water (not very much was there). Do keep a watch on the quinoa – you don’t want to overcook it. I think mine took about 13 minutes.

The other star of this dish is lime juice. Fresh lime juice. And don’t skimp on that either. In fact, I added a bit more to the dish once I’d mixed it all up. The mixture does have a bit of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, some garlic and peanut oil to start with. And once everything is done, you throw in some chopped Italian parsley, cilantro and I added some of the fennel fronds too. Definitely a keeper!

What I liked: the texture, the citrusy flavor that permeates it all, and the mushrooms. Oh, those shiitakes are just so good. It keeps for several days too with virtually no loss of flavor.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Great dish; worth making.

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Do you know about Hatch chiles? I didn’t, really, until some years ago when I visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, and learned about this unique variety of chiles, grown only in the hills and plains in New Mexico, from an area in and around the town of Hatch. It’s a hybrid, developed in 1912 by a local farmer who combined some of his favorite chiles and created the Hatch. They’ve become a huge success, a favored chile by most everyone who lives in New Mexico. Santa Fe even has an annual chile fest over Labor Day weekend that’s all about the Hatch chile. People drive from all around, to buy them – when the chileheads have big roasting baskets so you buy them already roasted. They’re a mild chile, about 1,000 to 2,500 on the scale. Less hot on the scoville scale than a jalapeno chile which is about 5,000 scoville units.

You have an opportunity, if you live in L.A. or Orange County, to buy some fresh or roasted Hatch chiles. This is a first – I’ve never been able to buy Hatch chiles here in California. Freida’s Produce has hooked up with Ralph’s grocery stores to sponsor some chile-roasting events this month.

If I’ve read the information correctly, you have to buy 10 pounds or 30 pounds of Hatch chiles (raw) and they’ll roast them at no charge. Or you can buy a smaller quantity, but then you’ll need to roast them yourself. People from Freida’s will be available at these events to discuss the chiles, recipes and helpful hints about handling and preparation. We’re going to go to the local one closest to us, so I’ll tell you all about it.

This Saturday, August 13, 2011, 10-4 or until they run out: Ralphs Costa Mesa, 380 E. 17th St. and Ralphs La Canada, 521 W. Foothill Blvd.

Next Saturday, August 20th, 2011, 10-4 or until they run out: Ralphs Los Angeles, 11727 Olympic Blvd and Ralphs Huntington Beach, 5241 Warner

And the following Saturday, August 27th, 10-4 or until they run out: Ralphs Tustin, 13321 Jamboree Rd and Ralphs Pasadena, 3601 E Foothill Blvd

New Mexico had a tough growing season this year, so prices are probably up (according to some info I read online). This venture won’t be cheap, but so far I have two friends who will share the bounty with me. It should be fun watching them being roasted.

Here’s a link to Freida’s Hatch site, with info and recipes.

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Oh, how I love this stuff. I swear, I could eat it 3 times a week and never tire of it. In case you haven’t read my other posts about calabacitas (cal-ah-ba-SEE-tus), it’s a southwestern veggie dish that ideally you’d make in the spring and summer when corn and summer squash are at their peak. But you can make this year ‘round if you use frozen corn. We’re able to buy summer squash twelve months a year here. Use any variety of squash – this one above happened to be a mixture of zucchini and yellow pattypan. I prefer the yellow crookneck, but couldn’t find any the other day when I needed to make this for dinner.

Making true calabacitas requires you to roast a poblano chile, peel it, chop it up, etc. Well, I just decided to detour there and use chopped raw poblanos instead – no roasting or peeling. Just chopped up (seeded, of course). Once cooked, the poblano becomes very mild with no heat at all. Then, of course, we had locally grown white corn. I’m going to write up a separate post just about the newest gadget I bought that makes instant-quick work of removing corn from the cob. I love this new thing. Check in tomorrow . . . about that.

So here’s what I did – I chopped up an onion, all the squash, garlic, piled up the fresh corn off the cob, minced the poblano. First I sautéed the onion, then the garlic, then the squash, the poblano, cooked that for awhile (not long, maybe 5-6 minutes) then added the corn, salt, pepper and a dash of heavy cream. And some dried thyme. Thyme isn’t native to this dish in southwestern cooking, but I just decided it should be in there. Every single time I serve this, I get raves. I guarantee you will too. Try it before corn is out of season.

What I like about it: how easy it is to make – works well for a weeknight dinner or for guests – they’ll be impressed – and the taste. Oh gosh. So very good.

What I don’t like: nothing, nada. Could eat it often. Could even be happy with this as a main dish.

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A year ago: Cauliflower Gratin with Tomatoes and Feta
Two years ago: Blueberry and Ginger Salsa (for grilled meat – wonderful!)
Four years ago: Peppered Pecans (an all-time favorite – great in salads or nibbling)

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Sometimes – or maybe most of the time – as everyday cooks we may just steam or sauté some veggies and we’re done with it. We’re rushed or just not in the mood to make a simple veg something special. And sure, I do that all the time. Last night we had onions and bell peppers roasted on the outdoor grill with nothing but some canola oil on them. And they were delicious. No balsamic sprinkled on. No sesame seeds. No herbs. Not even any salt or pepper, actually. And they tasted fine.

But then there are times when you’d like to do a really SIMPLE sauce that will make a fresh, seasonal vegetable sing! That’s what this recipe is all about. Sue, my friend in Denver, made this little sauce that was drizzled over roasted asparagus. It was just scrumptious. Easy. Can be made ahead and reheated. You don’t make much of the mixture anyway, but it’s enough to give oodles of flavor for a vegetable for 4 people. In the picture you can’t exactly see the sauce – but it provided a bit of brown speckle (look closely) and just lots of flavor. Worth making. Do watch the butter so it doesn’t get too brown!

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A year ago: Moroccan Lamb Chop Sandwiches
Three years ago: One Bowl Thin Choc Chip Cookies (my favorite CC cookie to date)
Four years ago: Shepherd’s Pie with Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

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As usual, brown food lacks a bit of vitality in a photograph. Suffice to say these are delicious. Different, a bit. But brown. These happen to be fingerling potatoes (Trader Joe’s has this cute little bag of potatoes that are just enough for a dinner for 4). The potatoes are cut in half lengthwise, then simmered or steamed in a mixture of chicken broth, fresh garlic, a little squirt of olive oil, some thyme or rosemary and most importantly, some lemon zest. Once cooked through you can remove the potatoes and reduce-down the broth (actually my pan cooked dry and I had to add some water, so perhaps I simmered them on too-high heat). I sprinkled in some salt, but then decided it needed just a tiny bit of richness, so I added in a little pat of butter. Perfect.

The recipe came from Dorie Greenspan, in her most recent cookbook Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. There is nothing complicated about these potatoes – Dorie suggests the recipe works best with baby potatoes – they’re just simmered in a flavorful broth. I sprinkled on some freshly ground black pepper. You could add some minced parsley to give it some prettiness. Serve immediately if you can.

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A year ago: Mimi’s Buttermilk Spice Muffins
Two years ago: Madeira Onions
Three years ago: Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sambal
Four years ago: Pesto Pea Salad (Spinach)

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Ready for something “different” as a side dish, when I spotted beautiful globe artichokes at the market, I said YES! And sure, I could have just steamed them, or simmered them in acidulated water – those are about the most simple methods to cook them, but I wanted to do something different. Remembering a stuffed artichoke I had at someone else’s house once, I went directly to Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s cookbook, The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy’s Farmhouse Kitchen. Sure enough, she has a great recipe for them. These were just scrumptious. Absolutely delicious! I was grateful I had all the ingredients on hand, too.

The artichokes needed to be trimmed (the top third off, using a good, strong serrated knife), then using scissors I trimmed off the sharp points on all the leaves around the outside. I used a serrated tomato corer, actually, to remove all the center, including the fuzzy choke. With one of these beauties it was simple (took about 2 minutes max) but with the other one it must have taken me at least 10 minutes. Some part of the interior was a little deformed and it just clung to its choke. Finally I got it accomplished, though. I used a lemon half to rub over the cut edges (keeps them from turning brown and ugly). Then I made a filling – some salami, pancetta, fresh garlic, Italian parsley and some fresh mint – all minced up, with a little pepper and a smidgen of salt. The filling was lightly stuffed into the center and some in between the leaves (as best I could – these were young artichokes and were very firm and tight – making them hard to stuff anything much between the leaves.

Kasper’s recipe doesn’t call for bread or croutons in her filling, but I had some delicious garlic salt enhanced croutons from my Green Panzanella Chicken and Pasta Salad the other night. I crushed them up a bit and added them in on top and tried to stuff a few pieces in between leaves where I could pry them apart.

A bit more lemon was squeezed over, into a pan they went (just a bit larger than they were), some olive oil was drizzled over the top – to sink down into the crevices – and some white wine poured into the pan. They baked for a long time – nearly 1 1/2 hours – covered tightly. Every 20 minutes I basted the artichokes with the wine broth in the bottom of the pan.

Do test the base – not just the stem – but the heart – with a sharp knife point to determine if they’re cooked through. Then they’re left to sit for awhile to cool down. I cut them in half and we ate just a half of one as a side dish to a grilled steak. They were absolutely divine. Kasper’s recipe suggests this could be a complete meal if you eat the whole thing. It might have done, but I’m glad we had just a half along with something else. If you like artichokes – you’ll love this preparation. You can make these a day ahead too – just bring them to room temp before serving, with the left over wine broth drizzled over the top. Do note, there’s no cheese in this dish. You could add it if you like – it might be a really delicious addition.

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A year ago: Gateau Crepes a la Florentine (a Julia Child, complicated recipe)
Two years ago: White Gazpacho Soup
Three years ago: Asparagus (everything you’d ever want to know about it)

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