Don't tell me I can't do that - or a slight case of masochism

I swear, I'm not forgetting the main focus of this blog - easy, everyday recipes. But every once in a while, I do get ambitious. It's not really my fault, you see, I can't help it. When someone tells m "oh, this is just so complicated, I'd never do that !", I have to try it out for myself. Happily, this is something I share with my wonderful husband, who has become a master in puff pastry, cream puffs and a lot of other things I deem too complicated to make myself.

This time, it was my mother telling me about a fried eggplant dish a friend of hers does. I love eggplant. I had eggplant in the fridge that was a tad overdue. I also had zucchini, canned tomatoes, and motivation. This is what came out of it.

Fried eggplant and zucchini

5 eggplants

8 zucchinis

2 cups canned tomatoes or tomato paste

a lot of oil

kitchen paper

Wash the eggplant and zucchini, cut them into really thin slices (1/8 inch if you can). Pat them dry.

In one (or better : two or three) large flat cooking pan, pre-heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot (but not smoking), place zucchini and eggplant slices flat on the bottom of the pan. Cook them until the underside is lightly golden, Flip the slices onto the other side, cook until golden. Place the slice onto kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. Repeat until all slices have been cooked - you might need to add more oil to the pan(s) between batches.

In a large oven-proof dish, alternate one layer of fried vegetables and one layer of tomato. Place in the oven (around 360°F) for 10 minutes, just enough for the tastes to infuse... and for the first slices you fried to be reheated.

Now, that took about two hours to make. After I was done, half of the kitchen was greasy and needed a good clean-up. And I can't say it's a light dish. But I must admit, it was quite tasty. Would I make it again ? Probably not, as my body sent me a very clear message "hey ! You know that lactose thing ? We think fat is just the same as lactose !"

First taste of summer

It's technically a summer dish, but the first round zucchinis appeared at our local market last week, and I couldn't pass them up. No big round tomatoes yet, though, so we just bought some small ones and added them to the stuffing. Usually, we'd carve those out as well and the juice and flesh would go into the stuffing.

It takes a while to cook, two solid hours. But it's worth it. It gets better with reheating, so my advice is to cook it in advance and reheat it. It freezes well - just reheat it in the oven for dinner !

Légumes farcis - stuffed vegetables

2 bell peppers

2 eggplants

5 round zucchinis (you can make do with long zucchinis, but they aren't as easy to stuff)

8 tomatoes

10oz ground beef

10oz ground pork

2 cups hacked stale bread

herbes de Provence (savory, thyme, sage, basil, rosemary)

oat milk

ground black pepper

Place the stale bread in a bowl and pour some oat milk over it. Stir from time to time until all the bread is soft.

Wash the vegetables. Cut off the top off the zucchinis and carve out their insides with a teaspoon (keep the flesh, don't discard it). Cut the peppers and eggplants in half, cut off and discard the stem. Carve out the insides of the eggplants as well. Place the hollowed out vegetables in a large pan with relatively high edges, with a dash of olive oil at the bottom of the pan.

Now take the flesh of the zucchinis and eggplants, dice it and add it to the bread mixture. Add the diced tomatoes, herbs, a good dose of black pepper. Add the meat little by little, kneading small bits of meat into the stuffing - the meat tends to stick to itself and not mix well with the remaining ingredients, so take your time to separate it into smaller bits and mix well. I haven't found a better instrument to do that than my two bare hands :)

Stuff the vegetables, replacing the "lid" on the zucchinis (and tomatoes, if you've found tomatoes big enough to use that way) after wards. If you have too much stuffing, either make little domes over the vegetables, or, if you really have too much, stuff the spaces between the vegetables.

Add a little water to the pan, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Bake in the oven, 390°F, for two solid hours, or even a little more. Serve hot with rice.

I don't have a set quantity of vegetables I put into the dish, I wash and prepare just enough so that the pan is full. You can pretty much adapt the recipe to other vegetables - onions, potatoes, small pumpkins in winter.

Caviar...

Not real caviar, no, I'm not that full of cash to cook anything with it. I must even admit I've never tried it. But I do make eggplant caviar on a regular basis. You can eat it as a dip, or as a spread. We generally eat a few mouthfuls over a little bit of fresh white bread.

I have to give credit where it's due, though, and say that I didn't personally make this one. It was made by my dear friend Eysméralda - but it still fits the title of this blog, and I wouldn't have made it much differently.

I know it's not the traditional way to cook it - usually, one would roast the eggplants in the oven. I tried. I burnt my fingers removing the meat from the skin. And there was one casualty. The first time I cooked this, I killed my oven. I had forgotten to cut off the ends of the eggplants before roasting them. They exploded, taking the door of the oven with them.

Okay, the door still hung to the oven. But it never agreed to close again.
For the love of quick cooking, preserving my fingers (the skin stays tender enough to be blended with the rest), and functioning ovens, I turned to the pressure cooker.

The caviar (on top)
with bread and cucumber-paprika salad

Caviar d'aubergines

4 or 5 eggplants

2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

a few leaves fresh coriander

olive oil

salt

Wash and dice the eggplants, put them in your beloved pressure cooker and cook until they're tender. By the sight of my nose, that should be something like 20 minutes.

Cut, peal and hack the garlic and herbs.

Put the eggplants and oil into a bowl and use a hand mixer to turn them into a somewhat smooth paste - don't worry if its not perfectly smooth, it doesn't have to be perfect to taste good ! Add the garlic and herbs. Serve cold. Or hot if you're very hungry and don't have the time to wait until it's completely cooled.

Now, there are dozens of way to prepare this. You can mix up spices and herbs, add lemon... Try a few things out and find what you like best ! You can cook a lot of the caviar, and keep it in the fridge for a few days.