Serves 5-7
Ingredients:
4 small eggplants
1 zucchini
1 summer squash
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 onion, chopped
several cloves of garlic, chopped
handful of sungold tomatoes (the more the better)
cheese, grated or sliced
saffron
broadleaf thyme, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1) Slice eggplant, zucchini, and squash lengthwise, thinly. Parboil in salted water.
2) Caramelize onions and saute garlic, and sungolds in olive oil until it cooks down and becomes saucy. Add saffron, thyme, salt & pepper to taste.
3) On a flat surface, stack layers of eggplant, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. Roll into concentric circles and place in baking dish. They should look like sushi rolls.
4) Cover with sauce and top with sliced tomatoes and cheese.
5) Bake at 350 degrees until cheese melts and becomes slightly crispy.
Note: We do believe this dish would taste even better if the eggplant slices were battered and fried before stacking. We didn't do this because frying is time consuming and/or not healthy, but we imagine the taste and texture would be vastly improved.
ASIAN PAC CHOI AND STRING BEANS
Serves 5-7
Ingredients:
2 large heads pac choi
large bunch of green beans
several cloves of garlic, minced
fresh ginger, roughly chopped
sesame oil
bragg's
sesame seeds
nutritional yeast
1) Remove bottoms of pac choi so leaves are separated. Cut ends off beans if necessary or desired.
2) Saute garlic and ginger in sesame oil. Add greens.
3) Once pac choi has cooked down, season with Bragg's to taste.
4) Remove from heat and top with nutritional yeast and sesame seeds.
Note: Don't be stingy with that nutritional yeast!!! Also, this dish would work equally well with any other leafy green. If you don't have access to Bragg's, you can substitute soy sauce. Bragg's is a natural alternative that contains no soy, no sodium, and no GMOs. It also contains 21 essential amino acids. If you don't currently have Bragg's in your refrigerator, go out and get some!
***In response to a recent comment, heirloom seeds and varieties of plants are open pollinated, organic, non-hybrid, non-industrialized crops. Heirlooms were the only type of crop grown and produced until the Industrial Revolution. They are often less vigorous not resistant to diseases, and as such are not being grown by conventional, large scale farms. Often heirlooms have strange and unusual shapes but taste far superior to conventional and hybridized varieties of crops. They are always more expensive. In our opinion, they are certainly worth their price.***
***In reference to another recent comment, raw okra isn't so grand. It's too firm and doesn't have much natural flavor. It tastes stringy and gooey only after it's cooked for a long time, and that is the consistency that makes it so wonderful.***
No comments:
Post a Comment