This weeks menu is hosted by Mary Frances of Gluten Free (Cooking School). Please visit her blog and check out all the menus and recipes!
Next week I am hosting the menu of the week and the key ingredient will be Eggplant, so start planning! The garden is out of control, so to tame it, I must harvest a few things like the 5 foot high fennel. I canned 2 dozen pints of tomatoes last week and will have to do the same this week.
Sunday: Lunch (up at the cottage with friends) Tomato bisque with loads of garden tomatoes and basil.
Dinner: Grass fed beef tacos with frijoles de olla and fresh salsa from the garden produce.
Monday: Bistro
Dilled fingerling potato salad (both the dill and potatoes are from the garden), grilled pork loin with a peppercorn crust and a salad with fresh local goat cheese, tarragon and blueberries topped with a tarragon vinaigrette. My lettuce is mostly bolted now, so the salad might be a challenge. Green beans with shallot tarragon vinaigrette as the lettuce is super bitter. Time to plant more lettuce (3 weeks ago).
Tuesday: French Bouillabaisse with fresh tomatoes, herbs and fennel from the garden, frozen fish, scallops and shrimp from the freezer and white wine from MI.
Wednesday: Thai
Rad nah (or lard nah) with tofu (still have some left from last week). I might try this method. I will be using collard greens as they are taking over one of the raised beds in the garden and shading my eggplant which I need next week!
Thursday: Italian
Homemade pesto from the garden basil over pasta with grilled something, probably chicken.
Friday: Vietnamese
Ga Xao Xa Ot using a combo of this, this and this recipe skipping the red bell pepper (not a fan unless it is roasted).
Happy eating!
i’m out
[...] Ginger Fresh Ginger has a bountiful harvest this week and she is using that produce in a themed menu. From the bistros [...]
By: Gluten Free Menu Swap Roundup for August 18th | Gluten Free [Cooking School] on August 18, 2008
at 8:54 pm
not a fan of red pepper? does not compute!
In your honor, I’ll be having eggplant for the first time in, oh, a decade or so. I don’ t know if I like it, I loathed it as a child. One way to find out!
By: cheryl on August 18, 2008
at 9:06 pm
Ooh, lovely. I’m excited about the eggplant because I’m making baba ganoush this week. If it turns out nicely, maybe I’ll have it be the dressing… er, well…salad of the week!
DH is a hard sell on the purple stuff so let’s hope he’ll go for it. 
-Sea
By: sea on August 18, 2008
at 10:35 pm
Looking forward to next week! Iw as debating if I wanted to buy eggplant this week for a few items but when I found out that you chose it for next week, I’ll wait~
Like Sea mentioned, Baba Ganoush is amazing; always make it with excess eggplant.
I also get to force my Phil to eat the purty purple plant. It shouldn’t be too hard; apparently by his opinions I cook better than his mother so he’ll try anything I make…He told her that, too.
By: Manda on August 19, 2008
at 9:31 am
Cheryl,
I do like red peppers and all the other colors of a pepper, but when I eat them, I want it to be a dish that focuses on the pepper as otherwise, it can overpower the other flavors for me. I should say, I don’t care mostly for raw peppers in dishes (of course this doesn’t mean hot peppers at all, I love those raw). I do love roasted red peppers, esp on pizza.
Try roasting your eggplant until it is caramelized – it is like candy then. I dice it in 1 inch chunks, slather on the olive oil and salt and toss in whole cloves of garlic. Roast at 400 F until they are golden brown and almost crunchy and there is never enough to put in the pasta dish I had planned as I eat it up straight from the oven. Glad to hear you will try eggplant at least once this decade!
Ginger
Sea and Manda,
My boyfriend despises eggplant and I love it. He always finds it when I try to hide it, no matter how small I dice it up. I was thinking about baba ganoush myself, or using super thin slices in eggplant rollatini . Or grilling them, or in moussaka. So, I will have to plan on having someone else over to help me eat it all as he won’t!
I have one perfect white eggplant in the garden right now and it is the size of a goose egg, so I guess I will have to go to the farmer’s market to get some. My purple ones are supposed to be egg size and are more like large marbles right now. There is a great Thai dish with plenty of green eggplant, basil and hot peppers that my local Thai dive makes, I might try replicating that too – if it is green eggplant he may not recognize it!
Ginger
By: celticjig1 on August 19, 2008
at 10:02 am
ok, I’m with Cheryl here. I have never had eggplant, but I am willing to give it a whirl.
I’m just wondering about your fennel. I have one that is going to need to be harvested soon, but I’m not sure how to do that (first time growing it, but I love it in soup!).
Any suggestions?
By: M-Elle on August 19, 2008
at 1:25 pm
M-Elle,
Somehow I totally missed this message, sorry! I would just pull your fennel up out of the ground like a carrot. Usually you can sort of see the bulb in the ground. I can’t see mine right now, so must have buried it to deep. I love fresh fennel slaw with lime, olive oil, cilantro, salt and pepper. Very tasty!
Hope your harvest was successful if I am too late!
Ginger
By: celticjig1 on September 5, 2008
at 5:11 pm