Eggplant parmesan

Tags

casserole, dinner, eggplant parmesan, savory, vegetarian, yum

I recently bought some ricotta cheese for a dish I wanted to make. I bought much more than I needed and wasn’t sure what else to use it in.  Cheesecake?  No!  I had enough sweets over Christmas.  An internet search turned up lots of pasta dishes but that wasn’t it either.  How about eggplant parmesan?  I’ve wanted to make eggplant parmesan for quite some time but I didn’t really want a heavy, greasy dish as it can sometimes be.  I looked around and found a recipe that baked the eggplant first instead of frying it. I didn’t really like anything else about that recipe so I decided to use that idea but make my own sauce, plus there was the ricotta.

I love putanesca sauce so I made something along those lines, you can use any sauce you like of course.  As usual the measurements are not exact, I throw in what I have or what I feel it needs after tasting.

The Sauce

• 2Tb olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves minced
• 10 green olives sliced
• 15 Kalamata olives sliced
• Can of diced tomatoes
• 2 small cans tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 4 drops fish oil
• 1/2 Tb yerma or Schezuan pepper
• salt/pepper/sugar

Heat the oil over med heat in a pan, add the garlic. Cook a few minutes and add the olives. After they heat a bit add the diced tomatoes and cook together for around 5 minutes.  Add 1 can of tomato sauce, the red wine, fish oil, Schezuan pepper. Taste and add salt/black pepper and about 1 Tb sugar to cut the acidity.  If it looks like you will need more sauce, add the other can of tomato sauce and cook until thickened.

• 2 Eggplants
• 2-3 eggs
• Italian bread crumb mix (bread crumbs, oregano, garlic, pepper & parmesan)

Meanwhile, cut the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices and salt. Let sit while salted about 1/2 hour.  You will see drops of water coming out of the eggplant.  The salt will take some of the bitterness away from the eggplant.  Rinse and pat dry.  Whisk the eggs together and dip the eggplant and then coat in breadcrumbs.  Put on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes each side.

• 1 cup Ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 parmesan cheese
• 1 TB basil
• salt/pepper
• 1 cup or more Grated mozzarella

Mix together the Ricottta, eggs, parmesan, basil and salt/pepper.  Butter a baking dish and layer eggplant, ricotta mixture, sauce and mozzarella cheese, about two layers.  Sprinkle with parmesan and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

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Ethiopian cabbage – quick and easy!

Tags

cabbage, carrot, cumin, dinner, Ethiopian, food, potato, savory, turmeric, vegetarian, yum

A few years ago my office had a pot luck and Mr. A’s wife brought in some dishes from her home country, Ethiopia.  I love collecting recipes from around the world, from people that I’ve actually met. Well at least until I started reading blogs, I’ve truly made some wonderful dishes from some of these blogs around here!  Anyway, I fell in love with this dish. She also brought a lentil dish that was ok and those flat breads that many African countries make. I can’t think of the name off the top of my head but they are flat and have bubbles, almost like when a pancake is ready to flip it has bubbles in it?  Hang on….let me look  up a picture online.  It’s called Injera.

Injera

It’s kind of spongy and I don’t remember much else about it. I do remember that she wouldn’t give me the recipe for Injera, she said it would be too difficult…she didn’t know me very well but for the sake of peace in the office, and because I wasn’t that impressed with them, I didn’t push it.  I wish I had pushed it and Mr. A is long gone so….I’ll have to find a recipe online.

The thing I think I love the most about getting recipes from people from other countries who are cooking a family recipe, or people who have been cooking for years, is that they don’t really measure the ingredients.  I remember when I was a child, my aunt had a woman who was a housekeeper and cook (this was in Greece) and I used to watch her cook.  It was a teacup full or a coffee cup full, or a water glass etc.  Then it was a big spoon or a small spoon or an amount poured into the palm of her hand. Watching her was like magic and wonderful smells and dishes flowed from her kitchen.

Mon petit chou

Anyway, that is how I was told this cabbage recipe and I tried to write it down as best I could.  This recipe is so simple and yet so good.  I posted this recipe on the AllRecipes site and people there made suggestions and added things.  So the recipe below is as close to the original as possible.  Oh and many of the cooks on allrecipes suggested the spices should be doubled so I will write the double amount in the recipe that follows…..

Ethiopian Cabbage

• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 4 carrots sliced
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper (or more)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 head of cabbage
• 3-5 potatos cubed into bite size (any kind of potato works) 

The start

Heat the oil in a skillet or a dutch oven on medium, Cook the onion & carrots about 5 minutes.  Add the spices and then the cabbage and cook another 15- 20 minutes. Add the potatoes and cover, turn the heat down a bit and cook until the potatoes are soft. About 20-30 minutes.

I don’t know why this dish tastes so good, there’s not much to it.  But the combination of flavors is really wonderful. I make it fairly often.  You can serve it with meat or a flat bread but I usually have it alone.  I made it the other night with almost an entire small cabbage and only 3 potatoes and I was hoping for some leftovers but we at it all up!