fried eggplant balls, mustard braised green beans and pancetta pappardelle with stewed tomatoes

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this was probably one of the best dinners I made all year. Nathan helped, but this was mostly my endeavor, and both he and Laura had nothing but good things to say about the meal. When you've got some crispy fried goodness, a tasty, honest-to-goodness healthy vegetable, and a really solid pasta dish, that's pretty much a guaranteed recipe for a first rate feast.

roasted eggplant spread sandwich with roasted red peppers, arugula and romano cheese frico

It doesn't take much to make a great sandwich. Take peanut butter and jelly for instance. I learned how to make it when I was in preschool, and pretty much nothing could be easier, but who doesn't love a good peanut butter sandwich? Well, Nathan doesn't, but he can be a weirdo sometimes. But I'm not here to talk about peanut butter sandwiches, but a much fancier affair, with crisp romano cheese frico, marinated red peppers and garlic, fresh arugula and a roasted eggplant spread from Ina Garten. Now that's a sandwich.

charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint and red pepper flakes

Just one simple dish for you today: charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint. Originally it was supposed to be "with harissa and mint," but I don't have harissa. Actually, I didn't even know what it was, but I looked it up, and it's a spicy hot chili sauce from North Africa, so I decided I could just use chili powder. As you probably know, I'm kind of a wimp about spicy food anyway, so I didn't lose too much sleep over it.

eggplant parmesan

The first time my parents (and I think my brother) met Nathan, he came out to Long Island and he and Matt and I went out to a medieval festival in Port Washington. We tried on chain mail head pieces and watched some cool jousting and a Maypole and then there was a fight for the crown and the queen was abducted and there was a siege of the castle with flaming arrows and oh my god what was I talking about?

Gosh that was awesome. We went back the next year and it was pretty much exactly the same, so much of the novelty had worn off, but that first year was pretty magical. And how about that first dinner with Nathan and my family?

Before the medieval fair, my dad and I woke up early and thinly sliced a bunch of eggplant, salted it and layered it between sheets of paper towels. Then we stacked some heavy books on top and let gravity do the work, pressing out the water. If you haven't guessed already, we made some delicious eggplant parmigiana.

baba ganoush

So first there was delicious ice cream, and then there was mozzarella in carrozza with tomato jam. The third thing I made for myself when I was able to open my mouth and eat soft foods was baba ganoush. I had a lovely eggplant from the food co-op, and had just seen this recipe from David Lebovtiz. I figured it would be soft and delicious, and nothing like a fruit smoothie, which was really all I was looking for at the time.


roasted eggplant baba ganoush

This baba ganoush is incredibly easy to make. First, you char your eggplant over a gas flame, like you would roast a red pepper. Once the skin is all black and smokey, you roast it in the oven at 375˚for 20 to 30 minutes. The charred skin peels off easily, leaving you with plenty of eggplant pulp to puree with garlic, tahini paste, lemon juice, olive oil, a little chili powder, salt and parsley or cilantro. I used parsley because that was what I had, and I subbed in Smucker's natural peanut butter for tahini paste.

Since I was home on Long Island when I made this, I was able to use my mom's food processor, which I really appreciated. After roasting the eggplant, this came together in a snap! I know I really don't have a real need for one, and I definitely am running out of kitchen space, but boy would I like a food processor. So freaking useful!

I liked the baba ganoush. It had a nice, rich flavor that seemed almost meaty after a month on soups and smoothies. I was able to swallow small bites without chewing, which made it an ideal part of a post broken jaw diet. It was, however, thicker than I expected. Generally you eat baba ganoush with pita chips, and my baba ganoush definitely would have been too heavy to serve as a dip. However, it worked just fine for my purposes.

Even so, next time I make this, I will definitely try to achieve a more spreadable, creamy consistency. I am not sure how I would go about that– maybe more olive oil, or lemon juice? Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure what the consistency of tahini paste generally is, but perhaps it is looser than the natural peanut butter I used. There wasn't much left, and as a rule the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar is very very thick, since the oil always floats to the top. So yeah, I guess the paste-like peanut butter could have something to do with the heavy texture of my baba ganoush. You live you learn.

ratatouille

I love the movie Ratatouille. When it first came out, I hadn't ever eaten the title dish, but I've since made it two times, with this dinner being my third. Last summer, Nathan smartly suggested I made it to use up some of my summer food co-op vegetables. Despite having seen the movie, I didn't even know much about the ingredient list, but it ended up matching up quite perfectly with a mid-summer's CSA share. Peppers, zucchini, yellow summer squash, eggplant, tomato, onions, tomatoes, garlic, basil, parsley... All farm fresh and organic from the farm. With ingredients that good, you can't miss.


ratatouille, fresh from the farm

The second time, I made ratatouille for a cooking class I was teaching for my roommate Laura, who runs a Saturday club program for girls in middle school. It was still tasty, but not nearly as good with winter grocery store vegetables. This is a meal that really sings in the summer, when everything is at the peak of ripeness. I'm not one to strictly adhere to seasonal eating, but in some cases there is just no arguing against it.

My last food co-op share before I broke my jaw, I had to marvel over just how closely the vegetables we were given matched the ratatouille ingredient list. The only things it was lacking was parsley, which I had already gotten at the grocery store, and tomatoes, which I picked up at Harlem's new Mt. Morris Park Farmers' Market, a scant 13 blocks from my house. Armed with my first local tomatoes of the summer, I was ready to go. Almost.

Even though I'd made the dish twice fairly recently, I found myself without a recipe, and unable to find the one that had served me so well last year. From what I could remember, my recipe was fairly straightforward. The vegetables were all cooked together in the same pot, added one at a time. When I tried to find a recipe, most involved cooking each component separately, and for salting, draining and pressing the zucchini and eggplant. This was more work than I cared to do, and more than was actually unnecessary, if my last year's ratatouille wasn't just a wonderful fluke.

I wound up perusing a Chowhound thread on the subject, and while I didn't find a recipe exactly like the one I was looking for, I did read through enough of them to feel comfortable trying to recreate the one pot method I had found last summer, although I did decide alter it slightly by cooking the tomatoes separately.

I started with the onions, sauteing them in olive oil with salt and pepper. I also threw in some of the beautiful herbs of provence that Nathan's mom Tenli gave me for Christmas for a real French feeling. In a second pot I sauteed some garlic in olive oil, and then added one and half large chopped tomatoes. I let this sauce simmer while I took care of the rest of the veggies in pot number one.

I let the onions cook for awhile, and then I added in succession one green pepper, one yellow squash and zucchini and one medium eggplant, each cut into small chunks. I cooked each vegetable for five minutes or so before adding the next one. I added the eggplant last because I was worried about it soaking up too much of the oil. (That's why so many of the other recipes suggested salting and pressing it.) I'm happy to report that it worked out just fine. Once the eggplant had softened, I added the tomato sauce and a decent amount of chopped basil and parsley.

Ultimately, I was a bit worried that it would wind up bland, so I loaded up on freshly cracked pepper and added some dried oregano. I let that cook for maybe five minutes more, and then took it off the heat. When my mom tried it a few days later, she commented that there was too much oregano, so I may have been a bit over zealous there. Personally, I thought it was deliciously fresh and herbaceous; a perfect celebration of summer!


rustic ratatouille

Unlike the dish Remy the rat makes in the movie, my ratatouille is not particularly beautiful or elegant. It's a simple, rustic dish. Though it's not much to look at, it more than makes up for its humble appearance with its bold taste. If you're looking for something a bit more visually impressive, you can actually make the dish as seen in the movie, a fancier variation of ratatouille called confit byaldi. The official recipe comes from renowned chef Thomas Keller. Julia Child also makes a fancier layered version. For me, easier was better, what with the heat we were experiencing for most of July, but I'd definitely love to try a more high end version of the dish some day. Regardless of appearance, I'm sure it's hard to make a ratatouille that's anything but delicious, especially this time of year. It's just the thing to make with your summer vegetables!