I love eggplant and I love peppers, but on a day when I’m in a huge hurry and don’t have time to fry the eggplant (actually, I really don’t even like to fry eggplant because it seems to just eat up oil if you don’t pre-salt it). I usually don’t have time to pre-salt the eggplant either (it takes out excess moisture). So, instead I tend to cube it, and bring out the sliced peppers I have in the freezer. This makes things so much faster, easier and super-deliciousness is not sacrificed.
This is how I make it:
If using frozen peppers, you need to take out any excess water, so what I do is put them in a frying pan on low and keep a keen eye on the pan, making sure all the excess water is evaporated before putting them into the baking dish with the cubed eggplant.
Season with salt, pepper, olive oil and dried parsley.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes- at the 20 minute mark, pull it out and mix it all up to move the oil around and be sure nothing dries up.
After 40 minutes or so, it should look like this.
Our favorite way is to eat it over rice, but you could also serve it with pasta or rustic bread.
Roasted Eggplant & Pepper On Rice
This is such a straightforward, mess-free dish to make.
Makes 4 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 eggplant, half peeled
4 cups sliced peppers- mixed colors or just green ones
Mix the eggplant and peppers so they are thoroughly combined and place them in an oven-safe dish large enough to spread it out so that they’re not too crowded.
I think eggplant might just be the quintessential Mediterranean vegetable. You find it in every Mediterranean country’s cuisine in such a variety of absolutely delicious ways. My personal favorite is when yogurt is added, which I believe is a particularly eastern Mediterranean way of eating it (i.e. in Greece, Turkiye, and many other similar regions).
I’ve had it so many ways in so many different types of cuisines that I can hardly pin down a ‘favorite dish’ but I do have a preferred flavor profile in terms of how it’s cooked and I think I love the way it’s presented in Turkish cuisine the most because of it’s grilled taste, even when roasting in the oven – as well as the other ways its cooked so often with tomato and garlic, which is very similar to my Sicilian heritage way of making it), and that addition of yogurt is my favorite.
When cooking this way, you barely miss meat in a meal, so it’s a great option for vegans and vegetarians as well as anyone who is skipping out on meat for any particular meal.
Sauteed Eggplant Mezze Recipe (Mediterranean)
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
2-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large eggplant, cubed
2 tomatoes (peeled), roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped fine
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Whole milk yogurt (optional)
Crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Directions
To a large saute pan or Dutch oven, add the olive oil and gently warm it. Add the eggplant and brown on each side, about 6-7 minutes. Next, add the tomatoes and onion at the same time. Continue to cook until the juice of the tomatoes has evaporated, stirring continuously as it cooks. Add the sea salt and black pepper, too.
Allow this mixture to cook for about 12 minutes, uncovered. Once all of the ingredients are soft and thoroughly cooked, turn off the heat and cover for about five minutes. Remove the lid and let cool slightly. Serve, as desired, either as-is like this or with a dollop of yogurt, sprinkled with red pepper flakes. You can also add a drizle of olive oil, freshly cut parsley.
Enjoy with some freshly baked pita bread or khubz (Arabic style bread, which is hefty enough to pick up this dish!).
Note: this is also considered a popular “cold” dish, meaning that it doesn’t have to be piping hot to be eaten and it’s also preferred this way a lot of times, as well.
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I have a wonderful recipe to share, and it’s one that I’ve been making this week just because it’s that good. I was preparing to teach a cooking class at the home of a friend and 11 of her friends, which was quite exciting so I wanted to make the class really fun and the food absolutely delicious. Although I’ve taught about Moroccan cooking before, I wanted to change the menu from the typical chicken with olives and preserved lemons dish to something different. I looked through a lot of cookbooks for inspiration and none were as inspiring as Paula Wolfert’s book, The Food of Morocco. It’s a great landscape of gorgeous photography that captures Moroccan people and their diverse cuisine throughout the country. I found a recipe that actually sounded like it was a bit similar in flavor profile to my Sicilian heritage, so I was intrigued to make it myself: Lamb Tagine with Tomatoes & Eggplant. The spices are different but the base ingredients are the same as something one might find in Sicily, which was an interesting thing to discover on its own.
To get started with this recipe, I actually begin with the eggplant first and not the lamb. It needs to be drained of any excess moisture and the way that I do that is to place it in a colander then salt it generously and put something heavy on top to push out that moisture.
For two eggplants, I do this for about one hour then use a paper towel to pat the eggplant dry of any moisture that didn’t come out the bottom and also to remove the salt.
In this dish, I roast the eggplant and tomato in the oven (on a parchment-lined baking sheet with a sprinkle of sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil), as opposed to frying them in a pan with oil. It’s just so much less messy and it frees up the stove top for getting the lamb started.
I love the other ingredients in this dish: cayenne, paprika, cumin, garlic, ginger, saffron water (saffron threads soaked in hot water) and fresh parsley and cilantro.
These ingredients season both the eggplant/tomato that will become a mixture, as well as the lamb, although the lamb will also get seasoned with turmeric and one red onion, grated directly int the lamb that sautés on the stove, first for 30 minutes with just the turmeric (plus salt and olive oil). After the 30 minutes, the turmeric and onion are added, mixed in and then the rest of the spices, too.
Once the lamb is seasoned with the red onion, I get to work on the tomato/eggplant mixture. If you roast each of them on parchment paper, it’ll be easier to clean up the mess as well as simply slide the ingredients into one big bowl to mix up nicely together. Actually, you’ll use a potato masher to ‘mash’ up the roasted veggies then add in the spices (garlic, cayenne paprika, red pepper flakes).
Once that mixture is made, heat a saute pan with olive oil and warm up the tomato/eggplant mixture. Add a pinch of sugar and the freshly chopped herbs and cook for about 10 minutes, or until it’s completely warmed up again and the spices have mixed in well. Remove it from heat and add in the juice of 1/2 lemon to the pan then set aside until the lamb is thoroughly done. It should have the consistency and look of something similar to a korma or thick sauce.
Once both ‘dishes’ are complete, it’s time to plate. You can use a tagine to line it up first with the tomato/eggplant mixture then the lamb then make a pyramid out of the remaining tomato/eggplant– that’s pretty for presentation- -or you can simply mix it all together and plate it nicely. I like to add roasted pine nuts or even almonds on top. Something crunch is always fun and interesting, and in the case it’s a nice addition. Just don’t use too much or it overpowers the rest of the ingredients that we really want to shine- particularly, the lamb.
For friends, family and neighbors who may have never had a lamb dish before, this is one to start with. It’s got familiar flavors yet a bit of exotic, too- and that, you can always adjust to taste.
One thing I’ve learned about taking the bitterness out of an eggplant is to salt it generously. If you can, place a heavy pan on top of it to help the eggplants “sweat” a bit. After about 15 minutes, dry up the eggplant slices with cotton/paper towels. Proceed to use the eggplant in your desired recipe.
Do you have any tips on cooking with eggplants that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.
Do people ever question certain foods you like to eat or drink in the summer? Not the winter, but just the hot summer time.
They might say things like, ‘How can you eat that(insert said food/drink)when it’s so hot outside?” No one ever really questions you when you have a big bowl of ice cream in the dead of winter, just because you wanted it, right?
Well, that’s why I’m going to talk about soup.
In the summer.
Because it’s a good idea.
Especially during Ramadan.
And here are a few of my reasons why:
They’re hydrating- hello, lots and lots of liquid!
If you use broths, they’re chock full of vitamins, minerals and more nutrients than what you get by just using water
A warm bowl of soup isn’t bad for you just because it’s not freezing cold outside. Besides many vegetarian soups are great even when served at room temperature or chilled. Think gazpacho!
When breaking the fast, a small cup or bowl of soup can help your body ease into eating food again. Going straight to your stomach, it actually prepares it for the next thing you feed it.
Soups are a great extender- it can feed a lot of people with fewer ingredients, making it an economical dish that is perfect for large families or hosting large amounts of people.
Soups help your weekly menu, a LOT. Why? Because all you have to do is make a huge pot of of it and a family of four to six can have it for at least a couple of days. Most soups also freeze well.
I’m a fan of soups, especially vegetarian ones so I may be a bit biased on the taste of it all, but the truth is that soups are a great accompaniment to main meals for all of the above reasons. The trick really is getting the base flavor done right, which all depends on what you want your soup to taste like, in terms of type of cuisine.
This soup I’m showing you how to make here is more of a Mediterranean style soup, but much of the ingredients grow in my Illinois backyard during the summer, so it can very well be an all-American summer soup recipe, too. What I love about it is that it’s vegetarian, so it can be eaten at room temperature and still taste good, and you can tweak it in all sorts of ways to make it different, make it your own.
It starts out with the basic base of almost every good soup: olive oil (or some kind of healthy oil), onion, garlic. Adding the peppers makes it a little more unique and could almost add a Latin flair if it were not for the eggplant.
If you were going for an Asian flavor, you might use sesame oil as a base; for a South Asian flavor you could try adding fresh ginger to the garlic and onion base; for something more Italian, add tomatoes/tomato paste, or even a mix of celery/carrot/onion- also known as mirepoix.
I chop up everything quite small in this recipe because vermicelli noodles (aka: “fideos” in Latin circles) are chopped and small, too. I don’ t want the veggies to overpower that; I want them to match.
Add olive oil, about 1/8 cup which equals 2 tablespoons.
Did you know that those handy small measuring cups make it super easy to measure out the commonly-called-for 2 tablespoons?
Once the oil is hot but not burning, of course, I add the onions. Don’t let them brown too much. Add the red peppers.
And the green ones. Or vice versa. It doesn’t matter which color goes in first, at least not to me.
Add the eggplant and the garlic. I don’t like garlic to burn- it turns dishes bitter when that happens. Instead, I always try to add it with another cushion- in this case, that’s the soft eggplant.
Next, add the freshest dried herbs you can find. I recognize that’s an oxymoron. But, it’s true. Find the best dried spices because they’re most pungent. I picked mine, let them dry out for three days in my kitchen and they were perfect. All I had to do was crush them. It’s a mix of about one to two tablespoons of basil, oregano and mint. Add sea salt and black pepper, to taste.
That should cook down and absorb all the oil, then you’ll add the best feature of the recipe, which is a low-sodium, all vegetarian and very rich vegetable broth. I use the Saffron Road brand because it’s not only what I trust to be good, it’s also halal- no added gelatin for sure, and the ingredients are pure quality. There’s a huge difference between adding water, good broth and really poorly made broth to a soup.
I use one entire box for this soup.
Look at how deep and complex the colors of the soup are.
Let it come to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer for about 30 minutes.
Then add the fideos/vermicelli (about 1 and 3/4 cups).
Let them cook until fully softened, about 5-7 minutes.
At this point, I add about one cup of water just because I’m trying to reach the consistency that my family and I prefer. If you feel like you don’t need any extra liquid, just continue cooking. Be aware, however, that the fideos/vermicelli noodles will expand and leave you less liquid than was there before. Adjust for salt and pepper, as needed.
Serve warm or hot, depending on how you like it.
Variations include adding tomato to the base, as well as adding small strips of chicken or beef for protein.
Have I convinced you to have soup throughout the summer, especially during Ramadan?
UPDATE:
The winner of this giveaway is Maritza Maritza. Please contact us as soon as possible with your full name, address and phone number!
If so, tell me what you would make with the Saffron Road Culinary Classic Vegetable Broth in the comments below and you could be eligible to win this lovely gift basket by Saffron Road, full of goodies such as their globally-inspired Simmer Sauces, the Culinary Classic Vegetable Broth I just showed you all about, an apron to keep you tidy in the kitchen, a bag of their crunchy chickpeas (which are nonGMO, by the way) and some coupons.
