Cheese 'n Pickles » eggplant

Sunday Night Dinner

Mike — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:00:58 +0000

It’s always uniquely satisfying to construct the majority of a meal from items you have grown yourself. This is what we did on Sunday night. I made some fresh orecchiette to pair with a sauce made primarily from eggplant. Heather suggested mixing in some hot peppers, mint (I used apple mint) and ricotta salata cheese. It came together pretty quickly and we enjoyed it out in the yard.

After the jump, a picture of the fresh orecchiette before cooking and an anecdote about the hot pepper.

We used the first couple of ‘Lemon Drop’ hot peppers that this season has yielded. They are a very pretty yellow chili pepper from Peru. I had an impossible time starting this plant (from seed), but I just kept popping more seeds into pots. About a month and a half ago the humble little plants turned a corner and really started to grow. Now I have several dozen peppers ripening. That’s certainly more than I can handle, esp. since these are pretty damn hot. Anyone want some hot peppers?

July 27 Harvest

Mike — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:18:07 +0000

We came back to several obscene cucumbers (3, weighing about 5 lbs.) and other ripe veggies. Heather will turn these into dinner. That’s 3 cucumbers, 2 Marglobe tomatoes, 1 green sausage tomato, 3 Asian eggplants, and a Bulgarian Carrot hot pepper.

Fresh From the Garden Dinner – Mike’s Fish version

Heather — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:41:53 +0000

Earlier today, Mike alluded to our planned Asian vegetable feast with the produce we picked from our garden. After we picked our largest veggie yield to date, we did in fact cook up a delicious Asian-influenced meal. It was a shared cooking adventure – I prepared the cucumber salad (top right) and made myself a Thai-inspired tofu dish as my main protein. Mike consulted Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and made the miso dipping sauce. He basted the sliced eggplant with a little sesame oil, broiled them and also prepared the green beans with a spicy garlic sauce. Finally he poached his halibut in a little olive oil, and then drizzled a sesame scallion sauce on top.

Start to finish it took us about an hour and a half, but the results were well worth it. Even Ezra and Helios got to sample a little fish, and were thrilled with that fairly rare event.

Finally, a meal this special couldn’t be accompanied by just any old beverage. I sampled the Virgil Root beer on the left, and found it decidedly pleasing. Much better then the common variety root beer that I usually run into on the rare occasion that a root beer appeals. And Mike enjoyed the organic English Ale on the right.

Overall, a delightful evening in the kitchen with results well enjoyed by all cheese’n'pickles participants!

Our first significant harvest

Mike — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:46:03 +0000

I did some work in the garden this morning, mainly to tame the growing tomato forest. One of the biggest surprises has been the vigorous growth of a single cucumber plant (the variety is ‘Japanese Climbing’). It is taking over the middle area of the garden. One of the shoots it has sent off is at least 9 feet long at the moment. I’m trying to send them up the clothesline ladder in the back of the plot. We’ll see how that works out and how tall they get.

That’s 2 lbs. of cucumber, 11 oz. of Asian egplant, and 4 oz. of ‘Painted Pony’ green beans. The orange pepper is a ‘Bulgarian Carrot’ hot pepper and the small purple flowers are from some Thai basil. Heather has her eye on an Asian-style meal.