It’s officially Fall! I harvested and cooked my first squash of the season and I pulled the rest of the beets and eggplant before the frost warning. My counter looks like a vegetable display at the grocery store - not a bad thing.
Today I volunteered at the Arboretum for the fall apple tasting - if you are interested, lot 1492 was the people's favorite but MY favorite was lot 1850 - it was smaller, crisp, semi-sweet and delicious - we’ll see what the final tally is.
I love being at the Arboretum, today I worked with 3 Master Gardeners, something I’d like to pursue when I retire. They gave me pointers and suggestions about applying, the classes and opportunities when you are done, there are so many to choose from. I don't think I'll be bored when retirement comes.
I’d have to say that this year was filled with garden surprises, eggplant was one and beets was the other. The beets were one of this year’s experiments - they did ok. We had several meals and I gave some away so I’d say that’s good but overall they were small. Maybe it's the soil, maybe I didn't thin them enough or maybe it was the variety, not sure.
The eggplant harvest was amazing and it lasted for over a month, we started picking them in late July and I pulled the last one off the vine on Friday afternoon. Last year we planted them as one of our experiments and they were so so with respect to yield but this year they went crazy, neither of us is complaining - eggplant is a favorite here. We’ve made baba ganoush, we’ve sautéed, roasted, steamed and stir fried all delicious.
When we were in New York a couple weeks ago I had an amazing garlic eggplant dish and I wanted to recreate it. With all that eggplant it was pretty easy. I started by finding the peppers (from the garden), onions, eggplant and tofu in the fridge and then washed, chopped and sautéed.
I put Dan to work on the tofu - because no one makes tofu like Dan. As a matter of fact I refused to eat tofu when I first met him, because every time I had it, it was too squishy (I’m all about texture). When Dan makes tofu it’s crisp on the outside and perfect on the inside - he’s my tofu hero.
The garlic sauce is this dish has the perfect combination of sweet and salty. I may have added more garlic and ginger than necessary - you can scale the spices up or down to meet your taste buds.
Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion - in chunks
5 - 6 Japanese eggplant
2 - 3 peppers - mine were small and I used a combination of red, green and ancho.
1 package of tofu
Garlic sauce:
5 cloves of garlic -minced
2 tsp ginger - grated
2 T soy sauce
1 tsp of corn starch
2 tsp sugar
Instructions:
Chop onion, eggplant and peppers. Combine garlic, ginger, soy sauce, corn starch and sugar in a small bowl, stir and set aside. Drain tofu and cut in small cubes, place on paper towels to remove as much moisture as possible. In a saute pan heat oil and fry eggplant until it is crisp on all sides. Remove from heat and drain.
Add oil to a large pan and fry eggplant, in a single layer, turning once until brown on both sides, remove from pan and set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan and stir fry the onion and peppers until crisp tender. Add soy/garlic sauce and stir until it starts to thicken. Add the eggplant and tofu and stir until they are coated with the sauce.
We served the stir fry with brown rice and a nice glass of wine/beer. It hit the spot and did not disappoint.
