Grilled Eggplant Steaks with Tomatoes and Gremolata

Eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables and I love how easily it can be enhanced with a sauce (especially if that sauce contains garlic). It can be tricky to cook though - in the same way it absorbs the spices it absorbs oil - like a sponge. So there is a fine line between it being healthy and fat laden.

I’ve found that lightly brushing eggplant with a little oil and grilling is my favorite and the sauce with this recipe - yum. Top the eggplant with some fresh cherry tomatoes and feta and add grilled mushrooms and onions, some fruit and lightly dressed greens and you have a perfect summer dinner.

Ingredients 

Eggplant

1 large eggplant – sliced into ½ inch -¾ inch thick slices

olive oil, salt and pepper for grilling

3–4 tablespoons Gremolata (see below)

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

drizzle olive oil

OPTIONAL – crumbled goat or feta cheese

Gremolata

1 cup packed Italian Parsley ( small stems OK)

2 - 3 garlic cloves minced

Zest of one small lemon, plus 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice

½ cup olive oil

⅛ teaspoon kosher salt and pepper, more to taste

pinch chile flakes

Instructions

Eggplant

Preheat Grill to medium high. Slice eggplant into ½ inch thick slices. Brush both sides with olive oil and salt and grill each side for 4 minutes, or until good grill marks appear.  Stack in a baking dish or bowl and wrap up tightly in foil so they cook all the way through and become translucent.

Gremolata

Place parsley, garlic and zest in a food processor and pulse until chopped.

Add oil, salt & pepper and lemon juice. Pulse again, until uniformly combined. Add chili flakes for a touch of heat if you like. Store in a jar in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Tomatoes

Toss the tomatoes with a pinch of salt and some fresh herbs.

Assemble

Lay the eggplant steaks down on a serving dish. Spoon a little gremolata over each one. Top with the tomatoes. Top with crumbled goat or feta if you like. 

Hope you are enjoying the summer and thanks for stopping by. 

Spicy Black Beans with Turmeric Roasted Cauliflower

Summer is here; the deck furniture has been unearthed, the garden planted, and a few gin and tonic’s have been consumed. We’re ready to spend time on the deck with the neighbors and catch up after the long and very strange winter. 

 This year’s garden experiment is patty pan squash and onions. We decided that as much as we love cauliflower and broccoli they take up a lot of space with little return so we’ll leave that to the larger farms and we’ll support them at the farmers market. 

I found this recipe at Rebel Recipes and with just a couple minor tweaks (because either we didn’t have the ingredients or didn’t care for them) it’s the same. 

The blend of cumin, paprika and turmeric provides a rich base of flavors for the cauliflower and compliments the rustic flavor of the beans. For those of you who are purists and want to make your own beans (either in the instant pot or the old fashioned way), I say have at it. Semi retirement has given me more time to do the things I love. Sometimes I choose to start from scratch and others I choose to speed up the process so I can get back to my garden or what ever project I’m working on. 

Ingredients:

For the Cauliflower; 

1 medium head of cauliflower chopped into florets

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Big pinch sea salt

Black pepper

Big pinch chilli flakes

For the Black Beans; 

1 onion roughly chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic sliced

1 tsp Turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

10 cherry tomatoes sliced in half

1 can black beans – including the water

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Instructions

For the Cauliflower

Pre heat the oven to 350. Combine the oil and spices to a large bowl and mix well.

Add cauliflower and mix well. Place on a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and roast for 20 minutes. Remove from over, turn and continue to roast for an additional 20 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked and golden brown. Remove from the oven.

For the beans 

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the onion and fry for 8-10 minutes until soft and browning. Add the garlic and and spices and fry for another minute or so. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until softened - approx. 3 minutes. Add the black beans with their liquid and cover and simmer for 10 minutes

Combine the cauliflower with the black bean mixture, season and serve with flatbread. It was delicious and lucky for me I got the leftovers for lunch the next day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Twisted Tabbouleh

Emily’s deli is a little spot in Northeast Minneapolis that makes hands down the best tabbouleh in the city; the ingredients are fresh the seasonings spot on and the pita bread melts in your mouth - it’s worth the trip. 

A month ago I bought a bag of hemp hearts at Costco - which may or may not have been a good idea. I tried them in an overnight soaked “oats” kind of recipe - skip that; on salads - keep that and sprinkled like sesames seeds to finish off a dish - again keep. 

Hemp hearts may look little, but they contain 10 grams of plant-based protein and 12 grams of omega-3 and omega-6 per 30-gram serving (more than a comparable serving of flax or chia) so they are good for you and they have that nutty flavor I like. 

I had a tabbouleh craving and didn’t really have time for a trip to Emily’s so I did a quick search for a recipe. Knowing I didn’t have bulgar I decided to give hemp hearts a try as a substitute - definitely a good choice. 

I started with all the regular ingredients and simply replaced the bulgar with hemp hearts - done. 

Ingredients

1 cup Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts

1/2 cup diced onion

1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, quartered

1 cucumber, chopped into small bits (about 1 1/3 cup)

1 cup fresh mint, chopped

1 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lemon, juiced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Add all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine. Taste and add additional lemon juice, olive oil and pepper, if needed. Serve immediately or chill in the fridge until ready to serve. The tabbouleh may collect a little liquid as it sits, just give it a good stir if this happens.

Serve with pita bread - Nom nom nom. 

A 17 Ingredient Salad

Most people don’t count the number of ingredients in their salad but here we sometimes compete to see who can add the most ingredients. Honestly, the person who is better at foraging in the fridge and pantry usually wins. 

This is my first week of semi-retirement, I like it! Leaving work at 12:30 and then walking with my neighbor Shari is a great way to start the free afternoon. Right now we’re walking the trail that runs by our house but we’re thinking a tour or two around the lakes (after all we do live in a state that boasts “Land of 10,000 Lakes”) will be just the thing we need from time to time. 

I’ve also been working in the garden and have plans to get some of those closets and other areas cleaned out - that’s actually for winter, summer is a time for enjoying and I plan to do a lot of that now that I have time. Also looking forward to spending more time with friends and family and drinking a little wine :-)

Salads are a staple at our house and actually they were a staple when I was growing up. My mom was a fan of the protein, veggie and salad dinners and that’s obviously carried through in my life. Although there was one time as a teenager my mom asked me to make a salad and as teenagers do I stomped my foot and announced that if I had to make one more salad I was leaving home. That didn’t happen and in time I came to like them although the ones I make today do not contain iceberg lettuce, which as you know contains no nutritional value - it is good in tacos tho - it’s the crunch. 

One advantage to having more free time is that I can try more recipes - complicated as well as simple. In addition to the 17 ingredient salad I made last night, I made a chickpea salad with tatziki dressing and a salad with zucchini, asparagus and a lemon vinaigrette - all were delicious. 

Raw Ingredients

1 small head of romaine lettuce

1 handful of spinach

1 stalk of kale

1 handful of snap peas - chopped

1/2 cup blueberries

1/4 cup raspberries

1/4 cup blackberries

2 T hemp hearts

1/2 cup chickpeas

1 tomato - chopped

1 avocado

2 green onions

Roasted Veggies

1/2 red onion - chopped

1 sweet potato  cubed

1/2 red pepper - chopped

1/2 yellow pepper - chopped 

4 ounces of mushrooms - quartered

Dressing

1/4 c olive oil

1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

juice from 1/2 lemon

2 - 3 garlic cloves minced

splash of agave, honey or maple syrup (I used maple syrup)

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Chop roasted veggies, toss with 1 T olive oil and spices (I used Penzy’s New Orleans). Roast for @ 30 minutes, turning half way. 

While veggies are roasting, chop all raw ingredients and place in a salad bowl and make dressing. When veggies are done, dress raw ingredients and serve, 

Here are a couple of photos of our other cooking adventures - some before end some after I semi-retired. 

Chickpea Salad and Tatziki dressing

Cauliflower Ravioli, spinach salad and french bread

A non-vegetarian day - Grilled salmon with  lemon,& garlic and grilled zucchini with green onion and lemon vinagrette

Thanks for stopping by!