Potato Eggplant Bake

Ricotta ready. 

Friday night consisted of laundry, tunes, and cooking before meeting friends for a pumpkin brew.  Not a bad evening at all.  This "recipe" was somewhat an improvise.  Brought to you by the ingredients found in the CSA.  Doing it again, I'd probably double the cheese amount and perhaps add in mozzarella to the layers.  But this was a nice simple, healthful side.  I froze half.  Cuz that's how I roll.  I ate this with phenomenal Eating Well parmesan chicken tenders.  Let's just say I'm looking forward to leftovers.

Eggplant ready. 

Ingredients:
half dozen small potatoes
half dozen mini eggplants
half jar or so of marinara
egg
1/4 C ricotta
1/8 C parm
salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano
parsley

Oven ready.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.  Slice potatoes and eggplants.  Salt the eggplant and let sit for a bit.  Mix the ricotta, parm, seasoning, and egg.  Put a bit of sauce in the bottom of the baking dish so as not to stick.  Layer potato, eggplant, cheese, and sauce in no particular order.  Making sure to season the potato layer well with salt, pepper, garlic.  Make sure potato is covered in marinara.  Top with parsley.  Cover loosely with foil.   Bake for ~40 minutes or so.

Face ready.

Totally normal.  Most people have 3 kinds
of breadcrumbs, right?
(Used for chicken tenders.)

Baba Ghanoush for the Road

Big eggplant half is in foil.

Road tripped to see my grandparents yesterday.  ~ 8 hours in the car thanks to thanks to traffic.  But I was prepared with my cooler of snacks/dinner.  I made baba ghanoush.  I had a bag of 1 week old tiny fairytale eggplants and now from this week's CSA, a half of a giant regular eggplant.  (Tina is back from TX, so the halving resumes.  Overwhelmed by eggplant, nonetheless.)

I decide to make baba ghanoush before my drive.  It is delish with the tini peppers from the CSA this week, and topped with chunked tomatoes from this week.  And add in some carrots, hummus, and pita chips and you have your self a hearty snack to hold you over until you are drawn in for a milkshake from Chick-Fil-A.

Ingredients:

1 whole eggplant (Or a combo of half an eggplant and a dozen mini ones)

Cooked and pruney.

Canola oil to grease the pan/eggplants
1/4 C tahini paste
1/4 C lemon juice
A few cloves diced of fresh garlic (or if like me, you are blending at breakfast time and you don't feel like cutting garlic, a heavy hand of garlic powder.  Like 1 T at minimum, more to taste.)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Heavy drizzle of olive oil, ~ 1T

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.  Pierce eggplants.  Add a smidge of canola to grease the pan/eggplant.  Because I had only a half of the large one, I wrapped it in foil.  Worked like a charm.

Roast in 12 minute increments to simultaneously turn the little ones and check the doneness.  Some came out sooner than others.  You're looking for pruney flesh and soft insides when grabbed with tongs.  If done, take out and plunge in cold water/ice water.  All in all, not more than about 45 minutes.  When cooled peel flesh off or just toss in a ziplock in the fridge to deal with in the am.  (If you are doing this process at 10:30 pm while packing, this is a good point to stop and go to bed.)

(Wake up.  Make coffee.)  Then, blend all the things.  Because the eggplant is so full of water, a blender worked like a charm.  Add eggplant, lemon, tahini, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  I'm storing in a handy ball jar for lunches/snacks all week.  But packed a mini container for the road.

Voila.  Crisis averted.  Produce will not suffer because I go out of town.  And makes for an amazingly delicious way to use eggplant!

Don't worry, Mom.  I ate (and photoed) this at a rest stop.
Not actually driving.