Roasted eggplant with green tahini sauce

I found a pomegranate at the store, and that immediately made me think of a recipe from Ottolenghi: the cookbook, that was garnished with pomegranate seeds. Obviously, you can't make a recipe until you have the right garnish! Anyway, it's also eggplant season, so I thought maybe this would be a nice new way to cook eggplant. It ended up only getting a so-so Ed-rating, because the eggplant was too cooked through. He said it was good, but only because of the sauce and the pomegranate seeds. Ah well, I liked it. Also, it was nice and simple to make, always a bonus.


Roasted eggplant with green tahini sauce
1 eggplant
olive oil
kosher salt
1C tahini
1 lemon
1-2 handfuls spinach or parsley
1/2 pomegranate
Basil leaves for garnish

Start by preheating your oven to 425F. Cut the eggplant into wedges - I cut it in half width-wise, and then each of those halves in half, so that I had four half-cylinders. The fatter end I cut into four wedges each, the skinny end was three wedges. Then brush olive oil on all the white parts of the eggplant, and stand upright on it's skin on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt, and bake for 20-35 minutes, until it's browning.

Ed's suggestion was to grill the eggplant, so that it didn't get as mushy, but still got brown. That would work, if we had a grill.

For the sauce, mix 1C of tahini with the juice of a lemon, a few handfuls of spinach or parsley (the original recipe called for parsley, but I didn't have any, and spinach is also green). Add ~1/2 tsp kosher salt, and a tablespoon or so of water. Put all this into a food processor, and like three seconds later you'll have the sauce.

For the pomegranate, I've discovered that the best and easiest way to get the seeds out is also great for releasing frustration. Cut the pomegranate in half, and then hold it, open-side down, over a large bowl. Take a wooden spoon, and whack the skin of the pomegranate with the back of the spoon, and the seeds all start popping out. This is immensely satisfying.

Once the eggplant is done, take it out of the oven and arrange on a big platter. Pour some sauce over the top, garnish liberally with pomegranate seeds, and top with some basil leaves, if you have them.


I should mention that while the eggplant only got so-so reviews, we were eating this with some porkchops that Ed had just picked up from Carl's Sausage Kitchen, up in Lynn. He's been in Lynn a lot, because that's where we're holding an orienteering meet this fall, and he's the meet director. Anyway, he came back with two pork chops that were cut super duper thick, and braised them in apple cider and a little smoked maple syrup. They came out utterly delicious. Most and tender! Also, because they're cut thick and with the bone on, you basically have a rib to suck on once you've eaten all the meat.

Below is a series of photos of Ed in various states of utter contentment, sucking on a rib.

Apple cider-glazed butternut squash

Woo, more cider recipes! This one was for squash, since we also have lots of that right now. I found it on epicurious, as ever, but that was for delicata squash, which I didn't have, and also used sage, which I also didn't have. So like everything else, I modified it for the ingredients I had, and it was delicious. The original recipe is here, if you like real recipes with real ratings and stuff. The version I made got a good Ed-rating, and I also thought it was good, which isn't something I've ever said about cubed butternut squash before. It's usually just ok; I don't like the texture, although I love the taste, and it makes great soups. Anyway, I recommend this one. The cider becomes deliciously tangy and sweet, almost like candy.

Apple cider-glazed butternut squash
Made a lot, like enough for six servings or so

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed. (save the seeds and roast them! delicious)
~3-4C apple cider
~2tbs butter
1 tbs dried rosemary
1 tbs cumin seeds
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tbs fresh rosemary (optional)

Melt the butter in a frying pan, and then add the rosemary and cumin to the butter. It should sizzle for a bit and smell delicious.


Once it's been smelling delicious for 30 seconds or so, add the squash, and then pour in the apple cider. You want enough liquid to almost cover the squash; it should still be sticking out above the cider. If there isn't enough cider, add more, or add some water. More cider will lead to a more concentrated apple-y taste. Add the salt.


Cover the frying pan, and turn the heat to medium-ish, so that it's bubbling, but not violently boiling. Stir occasionally, and let it sit there for 15-20 minutes, until the squash is just soft enough to poke with a fork. At this point, there should still be a good bit of liquid, so take the top off, and start trying to reduce the liquid. The goal is to end up with a thick, syrupy, concentrated cider sauce, coating your squash. If your squash finishes cooking before the cider has reduced enough (test this by poking it with a fork), remove the squash from the pan and finish the cider syrup on its own, then pour over the squash. If the cider reduces too fast and the squash still isn't done, add some water or more cider. In other words, you have a lot of room for error, here.


Once the squash is cooked through and tender, and the cider is reduced to a delicious, thick, goopy sauce, you're done! Taste, and add more salt if you need it, and garnish with chopped fresh rosemary.

Apple cider-glazed carrots

Ed went and picked a gazillion gallons of apples up in Vermont, and then pressed most of them into cider. This is a good thing, but cider doesn't last, so I've been coming up with ways to use it up. We had carrots the other day, and epicurious has a recipe for cider-glazed carrots, which sounded good. Of course, the recipe calls for two pounds of carrots, and I had 7 carrots, so I sort of had to ignore their proportions and just wing it. The end result was delicious, so I'll definitely be making this again. It got a soaring approval in the Ed-ratings, too.

Cider-glazed carrots
Carrots, of some quantity. Preferably the relatively small ones, because they're prettier and they cook faster.
Apple cider
Cider vinegar
Kosher salt
Butter

Notice the lack of any quantities... you can follow the real recipe if you want quantities, gosh darn it!

Start by chopping the green bits off the carrots. If the carrots are particularly large, cut them into smaller pieces. My carrots were small enough that I just left them whole. If you are leaving them whole, wash them pretty well, or you could peel them, but that seemed like an unnecessary step.

Put the carrots in the pan. Pour in some cider, so that there is maybe 1/2" of depth around the carrots. Drizzle in a little cider vinegar, I used ~1tsp for my small amount of carrots, if you had more carrots and more cider you'd use more vinegar. Sprinkle the whole thing with some kosher salt, about two pinches in my case. Drop in some pats of butter.

Bring the entire thing up to a simmer, and then put a lid on the pot. Let it simmer away for 10-20 minutes, checking and stirring occasionally. Once the carrots are tender enough to poke with a fork (but not all the way through), keep the lid off, and continue to stir around occasionally, reducing the cider. Once the cider has reduced into a thick, caramel-y glaze, you're done. Serve the carrots warm, or I hear they're fine the next day, too. Carrots are pretty forgiving.

Anna's applesauce cake

I can't believe I've never made this, or put it on the blog, yet. Anna Mcloon makes a mean chocolate applesauce cake, and apparently I asked her for the recipe once, back in 2007. It took some digging through old emails to find it, but Ed has been going nuts at making applesauce again this year, so I figured it was the appropriate baked dessert for the day. It also fits the budget pretty well, as I had everything on hand already. Cheap, tasty, sorta-healthy (I mean, it has applesauce, that's a fruit!), and easy to make. Good times! This one's for you, Anna, I'm missing you already.

Chocolate applesauce cake from 1,000 Jewish recipes by Faye Levy, with assorted comments, etc by Anna.

1.5C flour
1/3C unsweetened cocoa
1-1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbs vegetable oil
1C sugar
1 large egg
1-1/3C applesauce (unsweetened, 'cause that's what I prefer to eat)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9" square baking pan. I used a round one, and I think it was only 8" diameter. Anna mentions that if you use cocoa instead of flour, you don't get the cake all white on the bottom.

Mix all the wet stuff together in one bowl, and all the dry stuff in another bowl. Combine, but don't overmix.

Dump the batter in the pan, and sprinkle some chocolate chips on top. Bake 25-30 minutes or until the tester comes out clean. Lastly, the most important instructions: "Bring to party!" Except we ate it at home. Whatevs, it's still tasty!

Tomato tart

There are a bunch of tomatoes trying to fall onto the ground and rot right now, so I picked them, and some herbs that were hanging out nearby, and figured I'd use them up somehow in a dish for the potluck last Saturday. Inspiration struck in the form of a tomato tart, with caramelized onions and cheese. Can't go wrong with those ingredients. It was utterly delicious, confirmed by pretty much everyone who ate any of it.


Tomato Tart with caramelized onions and swiss cheese
1 recipe of pie dough, for an open tart
~2 fresh tomatoes
fresh basil
fresh thyme
fresh rosemary
~2C shredded swiss cheese (in this case, Jarlsburg)
2 onions
olive oil
kosher salt

The herbs are somewhat optional, but not really, because they tasted delicious. I also wouldn't bother with those tasteless store-bought tomatoes, since they just aren't that tasty. Not being a snob, just being realistic...

You can make your own pie crust, or buy some sort of pre-made thing. I made my own, and it took less than 5min. Here's a recipe.

First, caramelize some onions. I cut them in half, and then cut slices, so you end up with long pieces. It took maybe 1/4C of oil to get them properly caramelized, but it's worth it. Throw some salt on the onions as they cook, that'll help draw out the water. It was a 15-20min process to get them properly brown, but don't be impatient.

Then, blind bake the pie crust for 6 minutes or so, just to get it initially set. From there, I put the onions down first.


Then, I added the herbs.


Then, a layer of cheese, and then tomatoes! Slice them relatively thick.

More cheese, and maybe some little cherry tomatoes on top, because they're pretty.

We ate this the next day, and it was still freakn delicious. Make this.

Hurricane mousse

While Hurricane Irene was hammering New England, I was making mousse at Ali's house. We actually made two kinds of mousse, but I only took a picture of the white chocolate one. It was really good, I liked the texture. It was just chocolate and cream; I don't know if that even counts as mousse, but it was delicious. The recipe was on the back of a chocolate wrapper that I'd gotten in France, intending to give the chocolate away, as a gift. Unfortunately, the chocolate got sampled at some point along the way, making it more difficult to give the chocolate away as a gift. The only action remaining was to make the mousse, obviously, and then eat it.

White chocolate mousse
1 bar white chocolate (one that tastes good to you - this one was Nestlé)
200mL whipping cream. I think we determined that is just about 1 cup, but use the google for exact conversions.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Whip the cream to stiff peaks. Transfer about 1/3 of the whipped cream to the chocolate, and stir it around, just to lighten up the chocolate. Add another third of the whipped cream, and fold to combine. Finally, add the last third and fold it in. Put the mousse into pretty glasses, and refrigerate for >2hrs. The wrapper said overnight, but we found it was firm enough for good eating after two hours.

Enjoy!