Great Eggplant Gratin

Eggplant isn’t one of my favorite foods.  I like its shine, its round, waxy purpleness.  I like the sound my knife makes when it slices evenly through its flesh.  And I even like its other name, aubergine, and especially the family of colors it lends its name to.  But in my mind, its taste leaves much to be desired.  Last summer, inundated with farm share eggplants, I tried all sorts of recipes.  Roast eggplant, eggplant curries, maybe eggplant in soup (a disaster that I must have blocked from my memory, because I only have sketchy details).  And then somehow, somewhere I stumbled upon this recipe: Eggplant Gratin with Herbs and Creme Fraiche from Farm House Table.  And my goodness.  It is delicious.

I made it several times last year and then forgot about the recipe until I got more eggplant in this week’s farm share.  Seeing the eggplant triggered the memory, which then triggered a hasty scramble around the internet.  I had modified the recipe last year, and only remembered the modified version.  But eventually I refound it and then pinned it immediately, wrote a grocery list, and then darted off to the store.

FH and I made this last night.  And it was as good as I remembered.  Like last time, I substituted shallots for chives.  I also didn’t have any thyme on hand.  And lastly, I don’t think that the creme reduced as much as the recipe called for.  This was in part because, in the 30 seconds I turned my back from the stove, leaving FH to mind things, it boiled over.  And then kept threatening to boil over.  And we were really hungry.

FH’s one suggestion was to add a sprinkle of bread crumbs over the top to give this dish some crunch, as it is very tasty but is also very mushy. Next time, I’ll try it!

What end-of-summer foods are you enjoying?

Update:  I’m linking up with the What’s in the Box series at In Her Chucks.  Check out some other great CSA-inspired recipes here!

Summer Veg!

This week marked the start of my CSA’s weekly farm share! Last summer, A, B, and I split a CSA share from The Food Project. In my opinion, it was a tremendous value, perhaps because I paid one lump sum in the beginning and got bags and bags of fresh, local produce into November. We ate our way through fields of leafy greens, swiss chard, beets, zucchini, squash, and delicious heirloom tomatoes. I also froze bags of shredded zucchini and roasted tomatoes and ate them through the winter. In fact, I made my last bag of frozen tomatoes into a delicious sauce a couple weeks ago.

Yesterday, I went to A’s to pick up my share. This year, there will be four of us splitting the bounty. Since there will be fewer veggies than last year, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to eat everything while it is fresh. Also, there’s a new man in my life and I’m hoping he and I will cook and eat a lot of it together. In fact, we’re going to cook some Swiss chard tonight! Also, because this year’s share is split four ways instead of three, I’m hoping to supplement the week’s veggies with visits to the Saturday morning farmer’s market in my town. Yum!

I won’t be posting pics of veggies every week, but since this was a special week, I thought I’d show off what I got. This week’s share included my beloved Swiss chard, arugula, spinach, garlic scapes, a turnip, and a bag of tiny, delicious strawberries.

Stay tuned: tomorrow, I’ll post my favorite method of cooking Swiss chard!

Tradition

One of my favorite new traditions is building a gingerbread house with my best friend on Christmas Eve.  The tradition started last year.  She wanted to build a gingerbread house, so we got a kit from Jo-Ann Fabrics.  The kit came with pre-cut pieces, royal icing mix, and little bags of candies to decorate.  It was super cute.    It was also your basic gingerbread house.

This year, we decided to try something a bit more…  ambitious.  And perhaps Harry Potter-oriented.  We started planning early.  In January, I sent her pictures of a Burrow (the home of the Weasleys) made out of gingerbread.  From there, we thought about making Hogwarts, but at last we landed on Hagrid’s Cottage.  We decided to make our own gingerbread dough and cut out pattern pieces and go from there.

Cut to December 22nd.  I made the dough following the Simply Recipes recipe, which I refrigerated overnight.

The next afternoon, as Steph figured out how to build the house and cut pattern pieces, I rolled out half of it on my countertop.  Hagrid’s cottage has six sides and a sloped roof.  Steph made a template for the walls and two sizes of triangles for the roof.  Once the pattern templates were ready, I cut out the pieces – six rectangles for the walls, and six each of two sizes of triangle for the roof.  I also cut four skinny rectangles for the chimney and another rectangle for the porch roof.  (Let me know if you want my pattern!  I’ll post templates after Christmas)

We also cut holes for windows in two of the walls.  I stuck some crushed Jolly Ranchers in the holes, which melted into translucent window panes.  I also made the royal icing according to the recipe above and colored it light brown with food coloring.

Putting the house together took a while.  The icing wasn’t as sticky or thick as last year’s, although it was a lot easier to pipe.  That meant that we had to wait for it to dry before moving on to the next step.  The roof also took some ingenuity to build – we ended up putting cardboard and a mason jar ring lid (!) under it for support.  And used my hairdryer to speed the drying process.  The pathway is made from rolled-out caramels cut with a bottle cap, the forest is mint leaves, and the door is frosted on.  The porch supports are Tootsie Rolls sourced from my boss.

When we do this next year and if I use the same recipe, I think I would half it.  I have enough leftover dough chilling in my freezer  to make a whole ‘nother Hagrid’s Hut.  The royal icing recipe was good for Hagrid’s Hut but if I was to make something bigger, I’d probably want to double it and add some cream of tartar or another thickening agent.

It may not be as professional as some of the houses online, but we’re very happy with the results!  And I feel extra awesome for making everything from scratch!

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter or the design inspiration for Hagrid’s Hut.