Eggplant, Zucchini, and Tomato Ratatouille

The other night Mitch brought home an eggplant, a zucchini, and a big ripe tomato from the farmers' market. That combination of vegetables made me think ratatouille, but I didn't have a long time to make it, so I skipped the totally oven-roasted one I usually like. This combination of flavorful summer vegetables, red wine, and basil can't be beat. It would be a wonderful side dish with grilled flank steak or even barbequed chicken.

Eggplant, Zucchini, and Tomato Ratatouille
serves 4

2 tablespoons plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
8 cloves of garlic (less if you don't like garlic, I suppose)
3 shallots, finely chopped (or 1 small red onion, diced)
2 small eggplants
2 zucchini
2 large tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine (any wine will do, including one that has been open too long to be good drinking anymore--the vinegar works in this recipe)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 cup basil, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, for garnish
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parmigiano

Cut the zucchini and the tomato into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes. Score the flesh of the eggplants without piercing the skin, then use a sharp spoon to remove most of the flesh while keeping the skins intact. Set the skins aside, and dice the flesh.


In a large skillet or saucier, heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and shallots and saute for 2 minutes. Add the eggplant and zucchini, and saute another 5 minutes. Add the tomato, wine, and vinegar and bring to a simmer.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Stir together the bread crumbs, remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, and parmigiano in a small bowl. Simmer the vegetable mixture until all the veggies are soft and the flavors are melding, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the basil.

Place the eggplant skins in a baking pan, empty side up. Using a slotted spoon, transfer as much of the veggie mixture as you can into the eggplant skins. Cover the rest of the vegetables (the ones that don't fit in the skins) and keep them for leftovers--they only get better the second day. Top each eggplant filled with veggies with the bread crumb mixture, and bake for 15 minutes, or until the topping is browned.

Serve each person one eggplant half, sprinkled with the parsley.

Sesame Soba Noodles, Korean BBQ Pork, and Cucumber Salad

This is more of a meal suggestion than a recipe, since each part is pretty simple. But together they make a great meal, and not a difficult one at that. These are the sort of recipes that you just have to put as much of each ingredient in as you think tastes good, so I left out the quantities--you'll have to figure out for yourself :)


Korean BBQ Pork

Marinade from my Korean Pulled Pork recipe
Thinly sliced pork tenderloin

Coat the pork in the marinade and let it marinate for at least 1 hour, or up to a day, in the refrigerator. Heat a charcoal or gas grill. Grill the meat, turning once, until it is cooked through.


Sesame Soba Noodles

soba noodles
toasted sesame seeds
chili oil (or omit the chili oil and sesame seeds, and use some Japanese 7-Spice or Togarashi)
sesame oil
thinly sliced green onions
salt or soy sauce

Cook the soba according to package directions. Rinse them with cold water, and then toss with the rest of the ingredients. You can taste and adjust the seasonings as you want. Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold--whatever you are in the mood for!


Cucumber and Radish Salad

English cucumber
a few radishes
rice wine vinegar
salt

Thinly slice the cucumbers and radishes, and dress with the vinegar and salt before serving.

Beet Greens, Prosciutto, and Ricotta Bites, two ways

Baked bites

I had a lot of beet greens leftover from beets, and I wanted to try something new with them. I also really wanted to make fresh ricotta, so I thought I would try combining those two ingredients. Part of this idea came from how much I like Pi Bites at Pi, which are fontina and prosciutto rolled in bread crumbs and baked. I thought ricotta and beet greens, blended together and then mixed with some prosciutto might work well in a similar format. I'm sure they would also be good deep fried... but when something is good enough without being deep fried I try to resist the urge to add that much extra fat to it.

Pan-fried bites

Beet Greens, Prosciutto, and Ricotta Bites

1 cup fresh ricotta, handmade or store-bought
1 bunch beet greens
6 ounces prosciutto, in a small dice
lemon zest from 1 lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
bread crumbs



Steam or saute the beet greens until they are fully cooked. In a food processor, puree the greens (they will look more red than green if they came from red beets).Add the ricotta and lemon zest, and blend just to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste (be light on salt since the prosciutto is salty), and then some bread crumbs if it seems too thin to form into balls. Stir in the prosciutto, and refrigerate the mixture so that it firms up some.


1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup parmigiano, optional
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine the bread crumbs, cheese, and olive oil on a plate. Using two spoons, take a piece of the dough and drop it into the bread crumb mixture. Roll it around until it is coated, and then, put it on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Pan-fried bites

For baked bites: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the bites for 10 to 15 minutes, or until browned and hot through. Serve warm, on a bed of greens if you like.

For pan-fried bites: Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet. Press the round balls into flatter cakes. Add the bites to the hot pan, and fry for a couple minutes on each side, making sure both sides are browned. Serve warm, on a bed of greens if you like.

Two Versions of Mango, Jicama, Red Onion, and Cucumber: Salad and Gazpacho-style Chilled Soup

 It was a beautiful Sunday--sunny, just hot enough, and not too humid--so we had some people over for brewing (not my thing) and grilling (my thing). And though there always seems to be enough meat and chips to go around at a barbeque, there is not always enough salad. So I decided to make a fresh and light tasting salad with flavors strong enough to go with grilled food. A favorite salad of mine that fit the bill exactly is Jicama, Mango, Red Onion, and Cucumber Salad. I like to dress it with a typical Southeast Asian combination of lime, sugar, fish sauce, and hot chilis, and then toss in some fresh chopped mint and cilantro. It makes a great summer salad (or spring salad, for climates like I live in now, where spring is hot too). It only benefits from sitting out for a few hours, which makes it perfect for a grilling party.

Eating the salad made me think of how else this recipe could be adapted for a formal dinner, and I came up with the idea of Chilled Mango Lime Gazpacho with Jicama, Red Onion, and Cucumber. A cold soup like this would make an excellent start to a summer dinner. The tartness of the lime balances the sweetness of the mango, and the crunch of the jicama, red onion, and cucumber add texture to the smooth soup. The first stage of the soup can be prepared basically like the salad, with the only change being to cut the mangoes in larger, and everything else in a smaller dice. That way you can easily remove the mango pieces to a blender with whatever juices have been extracted, blend those up, and top with the diced salsa.

Jicama, Mango, Red Onion, and Cucumber Salad (serves 10)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

3 tablespoons Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons warm water

1 small Thai pepper, finely chopped, or 1 jalapeno, finely chopped (add more if you love spice)

1 red onion

1 small jicama bulb

3 medium sized mangoes

1 English cucumber

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup mint, coarsely chopped

In a large salad bowl, stir together the first five ingredients. 

Peel the red onion, and thinly slice it from the root to the tip. Add it to the salad bowl and toss it to cover with the dressing. 

Peel the jicama bulb with a sharp knife or a vegetable peeler. Slice it into 1/4 inch slices. Pile those on top of each other, and slice the other way to create pieces roughly the size of one of the onion slices. Add to the salad bowl.

Next, you will slice the mango in similar size pieces. I really should have taken pictures of this, but this is the easiest way to do it in my opinion: hold the mango on a cutting board with the stem part up. The seed is oval shaped, and runs down the middle of the wide part of the mango. You want to cut the sides of the mango off the seed, cutting as close to the seed as you can to get the most fruit off. Once you have cut these two main parts off, slice as much fruit off the seed as possible, and throw that in the bowl. Discard the seed. Place the mango pieces skin side down on a cutting board. Slice the fruit from top to bottom in 1/4 inch slices, being very careful to cut all the way through the pulp but not to cut the skin. Then make one similar cut (not cutting the skin) going perpendicular to the other cuts, to make the correct size slices. Now cut the pulp away from the skin around the edges of the mango slice. Next, turn the skin inside out, and using a sharp knife, cut the fruit away from the skin. It should be perfectly cut. Repeat with the rest of the mangoes, and throw all the pulp in the salad bowl and toss.

For the cucumber, cut it in half from end to end, then slice it in 1/4 inch slices. Add those to the bowl.

Now the salad can rest for up to an hour. Toss it with the mint and cilantro before serving, and enjoy!

Chilled Mango Lime Gazpacho with Jicama, Red Onion, and Cucumber (serves 6)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

3 tablespoons Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons warm water

1 small Thai pepper, finely chopped, or 1 jalapeno, finely chopped (add more if you love spice)

half a red onion

half a small jicama bulb

3 medium sized mangoes

half an English cucumber

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

1/4 cup mint, coarsely chopped

for garnish, sprigs of mint or cilantro

In a large bowl, stir together the first five ingredients to make the marinade. 

Peel the red onion, and cut into ¼ inch dice. Peel the jicama bulb with a sharp knife or a vegetable peeler. Slice it into ¼ inch slices. Pile those on top of each other, and slice the other way. Cut those slices again the other way to create ¼ inch dice. For the cucumber, cut it into quarters from end to end, then slice it in 1/4 inch slices. Trying to keep the mango in as large of pieces as you can, peel the mango and remove the seed. Toss all these ingredients into the bowl with the marinade. Allow this to rest at room temperature for an hour. If not much liquid has pooled at the bottom of the bowl, toss it again and let it rest for longer. 

Remove the mangos from the bowl and place them in a blender. Taking care to keep all the liquid, strain the rest of the ingredients. Add the liquid to mangos and blend for 30 seconds, or until very smooth. Taste and season with salt or sugar if necessary. If it is too thin, add additional water. Cover and refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Also chill the diced ingredients.

When you are almost ready to serve, toss the diced ingredients with the mint and cilantro to make a salsa of sorts. Distribute the mango soup between the bowls. In the middle of each bowl, add a big spoonful of salsa so that it shows above the soup. Garnish with a sprig of mint or cilantro, and serve cold.