Comments on: Menu of the week August 18th

By: celticjig1

celticjig1 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:11:55 +0000

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: M-Elle

M-Elle — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:25:46 +0000

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: celticjig1

celticjig1 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:02:57 +0000

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: Manda

Manda — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:31:27 +0000

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: sea

sea — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:35:22 +0000

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: cheryl

cheryl — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:06:32 +0000

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: Gluten Free Menu Swap Roundup for August 18th | Gluten Free [Cooking School]

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:54:08 +0000

[...] Ginger Fresh Ginger has a bountiful harvest this week and she is using that produce in a themed menu. From the bistros [...]