The Great Eggplant Experiment!

When the little brother and I were in Europe this spring, we kept seeing Lebanese restaurants all. over. the. place.  Now, the US has its share of middle eastern and Mediterranean restaurants, but since we don't live in NYC or someplace really diverse like that (ahem... New Hampshire?), we had never seen, much less been to, a Lebanese restaurant.  So we decided we needed to check it out, and went to a Lebanese restaurant near our hotel in Paris.  For the most part, I have no idea what it was that we ate (other than knowing that my dishes were all vegetarian) with the exception of 3 dishes: hummus, tabbouleh and baba ghanouj.  I had never had baba ghanouj before, but it was delicious - like smooth, smokey hummus - and I quickly became obsessed.  Back stateside, I found a company called  that makes a really delicious baba ghanouj.  Unfortunately, their stuff can be hard to find in most grocery stores.  The always wonderful Wegman's has some stuff by Cedar's, but sadly no baba ghanouj.  Wegman's does, however, make their own baba ghanouj, but as I have mentioned in other posts, its second and third ingredients are mayonnaise and sour cream... gross!  I scoured the internet for a recipe, and a lot of them called for similar ingredients...but I ultimately found one for Hummus-Ghanouj which uses chickpeas as a main ingredient much like the baba ghanouj made by Cedar's and the authentic baba ghanouj we had at the Lebanese restaurant in Paris... so I decided to give it a try.
     Now, as much as I love vegetables, I am not a huge fan of eggplants.  They can be intimidating to cook, and if not done right are either too bitter, too tough or too slimy.  The first step of the baba ghanouj recipe called for roasted eggplant... um... I'm no weakling in the kitchen, but I was working with an alien food here... The recipe said to roast them in a skillet on the stove, but that seemed more like grilling to me, and I was worried that they would be done on the outside, but not all the way through, so I looked up how to roast an eggplant, and they came out looking like this:

Post-Roast... kind of reminds me of a pineapple...almost

Ok...good start, good start.  In the past I've had recipes that would have been made easier by a food processor, but were certainly workable without one, so I've never owned one (we never had one in the house growing up either).  For this recipe I really needed one, so off to Walmart I went.  They had a beautiful stainless steel KitchenAid one for $70, but as much as I love, love, love my KitchenAid stand mixer (thanks Mom and Dad!) and my KitchenAid microwave, there was no way I could justify spending that much on an appliance that I don't know how much I'll use.  So I settled a Black and Decker model for only $30 figuring "they're a respectable brand, it ought to work well enough."  Well, I was right - it does work pretty well - but it also causes hearing loss in the process!  That sucker is loud... like, left-my-ears-ringing-when-I-shut-it-off loud!

     The second ingredient in the recipe was Tahini - kind of a hunt to find, and honestly smelled pretty gross, but this apparently is one of those the whole is greater than the sum of its parts type recipes, and the end result was pretty tasty!

Ta-Da!  Doesn't look very appetizing, I suppose...

     Next time I'll probably go a bit lighter on the tahini than the recipe calls for, and I might try cooking the chickpeas a bit first to soften them up so the finished dish has a smoother texture; but not bad overall!
     But, the eggplant extravaganza doesn't stop there!  The only other context in which I have found I will eat eggplants is.... clearly.... eggplant parmesean.  As you can guess, smother anything in cheese and pair it with carbs, and I'm pretty much game!  There's an Italian restaurant/ sub shop around here that makes a delicious eggplant parm sub, and I've been craving it for a good week and a half now, but it's so unhealthy and I've been a bit busy with night float, that I haven't caved in to the craving yet.  But I did decide to compromise with myself, and try my hand at making eggplant parm at home.  This recipe is a little bit healthier - you bake the eggplant medallions instead of frying them.  I think this recipe is a keeper... although I think I'd use fewer eggplants next time - probably could've gotten away with using 1 large or 2 small eggplants, I ended up with a lot of wasted eggplant unfortunately.

In the pan... all layered up like lasagna

Plated with whole wheat pasta

     Most people like to enjoy beer or wine while cooking.  Apparently I am an 80-year-old midwestern man, because I was drinking sarsaparilla.  It's made by an organic, fair trade company in Maine, and they sold it at my medical school, but I found this pack in TJ Maxx here in Pennsylvania!

    

      As I was wandering around Wegman's trying to find where they might have stashed the tahini, I found some delicious treats in their international foods section.  I had been looking in this section for weeks trying to find these crunchy, chocolate-filled koala's that my friend Clara had introduced me to and hadn't had any luck.  Turns out they were probably there the whole time, they were just out of my (short) line of sight.

The koala on the left looks angry... I ate him first...

     I also found a new (to me at least) type of candy bar from Cadbury, that I obviously had to try!

     The inside tasted like a combination of honey and maple sugar candy - I had to eat it over 3 sittings because it was too sweet.... I know, imagine me thinking anything was too sweet!!  It was decent, but I'm not so sure I'll be rushing right out to buy another anytime soon.  I think I'll wait for what Cadbury does best: Creme Eggs!!

     Last, but not least, in the organic section (where I ultimately found the tahini) I found little packets of peanut butter-honey... I bought one thinking it might go nicely with some free graham crackers at the hospital as a midnight snack, yum!

Bonus: it's 93% organic!