Eggplant and Tomato Pizzas

Martha Stewart really is one of my favorite food personalities. I think she always focuses on the ingredients and doesn't usually make a recipe so fussy that the star ingredient doesn't shine through. This recipe is one such example.

A good friend of mine was stopping in unexpectedly for dinner, and I didn't have much time to prepare. I had a couple of eggplants and tomatoes from the end of the summer share to use up, and I decided to adapt Martha's Grilled Portobello Pizza recipe for the eggplants and tomatoes. For Valentine's Day this year, Devin got me a stovetop double grill pan, and I am always looking for a chance to use it. Grilling veggies in place of pizza crust is a great way to health-ify pizza without sacrificing flavor!

Veggies grilling away

Ingredients

•                12 cherry tomatoes, quartered (about 1/2 pound)

•                4 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

•                2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

•                1 tablespoon Roasted Garlic

•                Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

•                1 eggplant and 2 tomatoes, sliced into ½ slices

•                About ½ of shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (I’ve found that vegetable peelers work great for this)

•                4 very thin slices prosciutto (about 1 ounce)

•                4 tablespoons Rough-Cut Basil Pesto

Directions

1.             Prepare a stove-top griddle or outdoor grill.

2.            Combine the tomatoes, thyme, 2 teaspoons of olive oil, the roasted garlic, and salt and pepper in a small bowl and toss. Set aside.

3.            Brush the top and bottom of each eggplant and tomato slice with the remaining oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill until the veggies are tender, about 4 minutes per side for the eggplant and 2 per side for the tomatoes.

4.            After grilling, arrange an equal amount of the tomato mixture each veggie slice. Top each with a shaving of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

5.            Arrange 1/2 slice of prosciutto on each “pizza” and spread 1 tablespoon of the pesto on top of each prosciutto slice.

6.            Enjoy!

Super quick and healthy dinner

French courtesy of Devin

Devin surprised me the other day by planning a menu, going grocery shopping and making dinner for me--all by himself! People who know me well know that while I do enjoy some assistance in the kitchen from time to time, for the most part I prefer to do thing by myself. I find cooking to be a sort of therapy--it is methodical and relaxing. You can put on some soothing music, sip a glass of wine, and generally just unwind. 

However, I had been having a particularly tough week, and I think Devin could just sense that I needed some taking care of. He generally sticks to baking, but I was thrilled at this amazing menu he put together. It was just the thing to pick me up after a hard week.

• Filet of Beef au Poivre (Ina Garten)
• Roasted Asparagus with Hollandaise (Ina Garten)
• Garlic mashed potatoes
• Profiteroles (Ina Garten)

Just yum.

Dessert!

The next morning for breakfast he indulged me yet again by using leftovers from the previous night to prepare a decadent breakfast of poached eggs with asparagus and hollandaise sauce with grilled mashed potatoes. 

Pumpkin Party Potluck

This Sunday, Devin and I are hosting a pumpkin party potluck. I decided to have this sometime last month when the first chill of fall was in the air, and I decided rather than lament autumn's coming, to celebrate it. With the help of our friends, here is the plan for the event:

Beverages
Pumpkin martini
Pumpkin beer

Menu
Pumpkin soup
Fall harvest salad with pumpkin seeds
Pumpkin ravioli with hazelnuts and sage brown butter
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin cookies
Pumpkin chocolate chip squares

Activities
Pumpkin carving
Pumpkin seed roasting

I am dying to do this for the beers (see below), via Martha Stewart...pictures and a recap to come!

Best beer cooler ever!

Best-Ever Stuffed Peppers

Let me just start by saying, PLEASE MAKE THIS. It is so delicious that I've made it every week since I first tried it. And the best part is you can make a double batch of the filling and freeze it--then all you have to do for dinner is thaw (the night before in the fridge), add filling to the peppers, and shred cheese. It is the ultimate easy dinner.

Onto the peppers...

At the end of the summer Enterprise Farm (the provider of our CSA) began to unload bell peppers on us. I love peppers--in salads, omelets, stirfries, you name it. But there was a slight chill in the air, some dry polenta in the cupboard, and several ears of corn in the fridge. Goey, warm, stuffed peppers sounded like the perfect semi-healthy comfort food I was craving. I googled "bell peppers, polenta and corn" and of course my dear friend Martha had an idea!

I adapted Martha Stewart's polenta and corn stuffed peppers. I love that Martha, but some of her recipes are surprisingly bland. Here is my adaptation of her recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion (or 4 shallots) and 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 3-4 ears corns sliced off the cob
• 1 cup shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
• 4 bell peppers, halved lengthwise through stem, ribs and seeds removed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a medium saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high. Cook onion or shallots and garlic, stirring often, until lightly browned, 5 minutes. Add spices and combine. Add 3 cups water, 1 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; bring to a boil.
3. Whisking constantly, gradually add cornmeal, whisking until incorporated before adding more. Reduce to a simmer; cook, whisking frequently, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in corn, remaining 3 tablespoons butter, and half the cheese until melted.
4. Place peppers in a large baking dish; fill with polenta mixture. Add about a 1/2 inch of water to the bottom of the pan. Cover tightly with foil; bake 30 minutes. Remove foil; sprinkle with remaining cheese.
5. Return to oven; bake, uncovered, until cheese is golden and peppers are very tender, about 30 minutes more. Garnish with a sprinkling of smoked paprika. Serve immediately.

Ingredients (notice the chopped red pepper--I used that as a garnish but decided it didn't look good)



Farmshare peppers!



Melty, cheesy, pepper goodness.

Tomatillo Guacamole

We got tomatillos in our share earlier this summer. I had actually never had one before, and I had to look them up to see what they were and what to do with them.


Wikipedia told me: The tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica) is a plant of the tomato family, related to the cape gooseberry, bearing small, spherical and green or green-purple fruit of the same name. Tomatillos, referred to as green tomato (Spanish: tomate verde) in Mexico, are a staple in Mexican cuisine. Tomatillos are grown throughout the Western Hemisphere."


Sounded like I should put it in some kind of salsa or guacamole, and I figured my usual mix of veggie, spices, herbs and oil should do the trick.  I served it with blue corn tortilla chips, and the resulting recipe was tart, tangy, and had a delightful mix of textures. A must-try if you have tomatillos on hand for some reason.

Ingredients

Tomatillo guac!

Quick Whole Wheat Molasses Bread

We had a standmixer and molasses just hanging around waiting to be used. I found Mark Bittman's lovely recipe in my encyclopedic cookbook. All I can say is plop this guy in the oven and bake. Once it cools, slice, toast and slather on the Nutella!

finished product with delicious nutella!

Goodbye, Summer...

I’m flipping out excited. After a bad history with faithless laptops, I finally decided I needed something more serious. Something sleek and reliable, something that didn’t have viruses, something I could really trust. Enter: MACBOOKPRO!!! Yeah, I got the iPhone, I’m an app-aholic, and now this. Whatever.

I justified this purchase in several ways.

• My current computer is a piece of sh*t. Literally, my friends mock it. It can barely open Word let alone a YouTube video. I require a machine that works. Because of the issue of my current model barely working, I’ve taken over my fiancé’s machine as often as he will tolerate. He has returned to school, so this is no longer possible.
• I am applying to grad school (again.) I need a workhorse of a machine for applications and essays.
• Hopefully grad school—if I get in, I need a working machine, duh! (This is the major one)
• Netflix—is that shallow? Sorry.
• Wedding planning (ditto to above)
• Photograph storage and sorting
• Music storage
• Being part of normal society

So why is all of this relevant here? Because I now have a real, true, working computer, and I plan to blog a lot more.

Until I can really sit down and get the new machine up to date with all my recent food endeavors, I leave you with a shot of a recent meal made. We visited with some friends on the lake in Meredith, NH and had a fantastically wonderful surf and turf meal. It was a lovely way to spend Labor Day weekend, and the ideal meal to say farewell to summer.

Lobster, grilled eggplant and corn!

The spread

The Gents

The girls, enjoying Arabella and Mike's amazing Stoli Doli