I'm always looking for new ways to make chicken and/or vegetables. Chicken is incredibly versatile, and I find myself eating chicken and vegetables a lot, no matter what season it is. Veggies are good for you and chicken has a lot of protein (and I usually have it skinless).
I also like rosemary more than a human being should like rosemary, so this recipe for Roasted Rosemary Chicken and Vegetables is one I'm going to try this week. I don't think I've ever marinated chicken or meat in a rosemary marinade. Full recipe after the jump.
I'm beginning to believe that there's something special about the eggplants that grow in Pennsylvania. About a month ago, I posted about a suburban Philadelphia woman who discovered that the seed pattern in her eggplant looked like it was spelling out the word God. Last night, as I was slicing my own white eggplant for a broiled eggplant dish, I took a closer look and don't you know, but it resembles the that same divine word. Now, I realize that it's sort of a hard sell. It does look a little more like Gob than God. But it leads me to wonder if I shouldn't look more closely at my future eggplants. Maybe they've been trying to speak to me for years, and I just haven't been paying attention!
Recently, I mentioned to my mom that I had an eggplant in my fridge that needed to be used. She started telling me about a recipe that a friend had given her back when she was first married for broiled eggplant. She remembered it being delicious. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention when she told me about it, because if it had been that good, why was it not part of the menu rotation when I was growing up?
The original eggplant got put to other purposes, but this weekend I picked up two nice, firm, white eggplants this weekend at the farmers market, and so this recipe started niggling away at my consciousness again. I put it together tonight and nearly wept at my first bite as it was tender and sweet and crunchy and wonderful. I called my mother up as soon as my plate was clean to ask her how it was possible that she had known of this preparation for nearly 40 years and I was only eating it tonight. In some sense, I'm grateful for her recipe amnesia, if only because it contributed to a fun recipe discovery tonight. If you like eggplant, don't wait 40 years to make this dish.
Sunday night I pulled together an improvised baked veggie dish that took inspiration from ratatouille and the lasagna that my mom used to make when I was little. I thinly sliced half of a sizable zucchini, along with an eggplant that had been withering away in my fridge for the last week. I threw together a quick tomato sauce with several bruised tomatoes (I inadvertently squished half of my farmers market haul on the way home), a can of San Marzano tomatoes, a bunch of crushed garlic and a few minced shallots. Oh, and at the last minute I tossed a handful of chopped basil in to give it another hit of flavor and aroma.
I put down one layer of the sliced zucchini and eggplant on the bottom of a glass baking dish. Then spooned a layer of ricotta cheese down and poured half the tomato sauce down on top of that. A second layer of zucchini and eggplant when down, along with the other half of the sauce. This was the moment at which I dearly wished I had used a slightly deeper baking dish, as I was right at the edge. I covered it with tin foil and baked it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.
Today while pimping Slashfood for the Blogger's Choice Awards, I came across what seems like a whole sub-blogosphere of vegan food blogs. I knew there were some, but who knew there were enough to fill an entire page of nominations!
Now I ate vegan for about six months for no good reason other than "just to try it." It was hard. I had to cook all the time, and after a while, because I'm not very innovative in the kitchen, I was eating the same things all the time. However, had I had access to something as gorgeously delicious as this Eggplant Napoleon as prepared by food blog Vegan Yum Yum, I might have eaten vegan out a little bit longer (but not forever - I do need to taste a rare steak every once in a while).
Stephen, at Stephen Cooks, really outdid himself with the photo of Caponata Pizza, with Eggplant, Tomato and Onions. Caponata is a traditional Italian dish of eggplant stew, served on toasted crostini. This variation puts the same flavors onto a pizza. The pizza looks like it is perfectly cooked and the extreme close-up of the slice captures the melting cheese and eggplant topping, as well as the sprinkling of toasty pinenuts and parsley garnish. Could it be pizza perfection? That is hard to say, since there are so many different types of pizza out there. But, from the look of it, even a dyed-in-the-wool pepperoni fan would be tempted to take a bite (or two) of this pie.
I like eggplant but don't cook it all that often. I have no good reason to offer up for this, but other than occasionally grilling it, it's not on the menu. After seeing this recipe that Barrett posted for Eggplant Stuffed with Fruit and Nut Rice on Too Many Chefs, I'm definitely going to make a change because this dish sounds delicious. And even more importantly, it looks delicious. Simple, light and summery, a rice salad is prepared with a combination of Persian and Indian spices, summer squash and eggplant, not to mention dried fruits and nuts, then is stuffed into a hollowed out eggplant and baked. The smell must be fantastic with, cumin, cinnamon and tarragon. This sounds like the perfect meal for a night that is too hot for a heavy meat dish, as well as a night when you want to have an extra serving of pie for dessert.
I'm always looking for new ways to make chicken and/or vegetables. Chicken is incredibly versatile, and I find myself eating chicken and vegetables a lot, no matter what season it is. Veggies are good for you and chicken has a lot of protein (and I usually have it skinless).
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