Eggplant and Green Pepper in Miso

This is from Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen which I’ve been enjoying.  I just used one small Japanese eggplant and half a green pepper because I was only feeding two people, and I cut back a bit on the sauce ingredients as well. It came out quite good. Well, I liked it. My youngest wasn’t so crazy about it but then she likes neither eggplant or green peppers, so I didn’t have high expectations!  I’ll post her quantities below since I winged and eyeballed my adjustments.

Oh, I just realized I forgot to garnish mine with the sesame seeds and oil!  Still tasted good.

• 1 pound Japanese eggplant
• 2 Tbs mirin
• 2 Tbs red miso
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sake
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 green pepper, cored and seeded, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 tsp toasted white sesame
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Soak the eggplant in some salted water while you prepare the sauce.

In a small bowl, mix together the mirin, miso, sake and sugar. Set this aside for the end of the recipe.

Start the oil heating in a wok if you have one. I used a medium saucepan so I could get by with using less oil and still having some depth. Drain the eggplant and blot dry with a paper towel. You want the oil about 350. If you drop a cube of bread in, it should sizzle.

Gently slide some of the eggplant pieces in and fry a few minutes until golden brown and cooked through. (A fork or skewer should easily go through.) Remove and drain on paper towels as small batches are done.

Now if you’re not frying anything else, drain the oil from the pan and reserve for another use. Since I was also going to fry some chicken, I just added a small bit of oil to a small frying pan.

Cook the pepper until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add the eggplant back to the pan, then stir the miso sauce over it all and cook while stirring a few minutes to blend flavors and coat the vegetables.  Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the sesame seeds and sesame oil.

You can see my whole menu here.

• 3 Tbs rice vinegar
• 2 Tbs red onion (I had none so left this out)
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbs sesame oil
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Mix it all together and pour over 6 cups of greens and diced veggies. I did add some chopped cilantro as she suggested to my red leaf lettuce and baby spinach, which I thought added a nice touch. I also included some diced red pepper, diced celery and 1 green onion (scallion) diced.

Really quite nice and a nice counterpoint to the recipe for teriyaki salmon I made.

Cauliflower and cucumber pickles

This is from a Japanese cookbook, Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go but it could easily accompany any meal where you wanted a small side dish. I love little side dishes like this. I had actually steamed cauliflower the other night to make this cauliflower with salsa verde. I had some plain steamed cauliflower left over so this little pickle dish went together very quickly.

• a few small pieces of steamed cauliflower florets
• a few inches of cucumber, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar

The recipe also called for 1 tsp citron juice and 2 slices citron zest but I had neither of those.

Sprinkle the cucumber slices with salt and rub in, then squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible.  Toss the steamed cauliflower with the rest of the ingredients.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Apples

Okay, most of you are wrinkling your noses already aren’t you?  But for some reason I like Brussels Sprouts. I grew them one year in the garden as well and they were totally carefree and easy. Hmmm… probably about time to plant them again.

I found this recipe in the latest Cooking Light magazine. I’ve recently resubscribed and am enjoying it.  The combo of the apples and apple juice (I didn’t have cider like the recipe called for..is there really a difference?) and the roasting made this quite good. Even my 15 year old liked it!  I didn’t actually measure the sprouts, just used what I thought we would eat.

• 8 ounces (?) Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed and then quartered
• 1/2 cup diced apple
• a good splash of apple juice, 2 Tbs or so
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• a dash each of salt and ground pepper

Mix everything together in a bowl, then put in a shallow pan for roasting.  I used half a small jelly roll pan and filled the other half with some cut up red potatoes and roasted them at the same time.

Kielbasa, potatoes, apples and Brussels sprouts

Heat the oven to 375 and roast about 25 minutes, stirring now and then.   These were done slightly before the potatoes so I just pulled them out sooner, put them in a small bowl, and left it sitting on the oven to keep warm while everything else finished up.

This went great with the roasted red potatoes (cut into cubes and tossed with olive oil and Penzey’s Salad Seasonings), sliced and browned Kielbasa sausage, and some fried apples and onions.

Beets from the garden

I planted beets a long time ago and then sort of forgot about them in the rush of tomatoes and cucumbers and basil and peppers and lettuce and such.  But they were patient and sat there waiting for me to remember them!

I washed them off and cut all but an inch of the greens of the beets, saving the greens of course.  For the beets themselves, I wrapped in foil and baked an hour or so at 350.  The time will vary depending on the size of your beets. Poke them with a knife and make sure they’re soft through.  When you unwrap them, you can easily pull the peel off, trim the root and greens ends off, then chop. Top with a bit of butter and salt. Yum!

I sorted through the greens and took out the big tough ones (because they’d been in the garden so long!) The tender greens I cooked like chard, with some garlic and oil, letting them wilt.   Served with a few wedges of lemon (also from the yard). Garlic was homegrown too.  The more things come from the garden the more I enjoy the meal!

Anyone have some favorite beet recipes to share? Borscht?  I have a dozen or so left in the garden.  Will be planting more since they were so effortless and easy and are patient!

Pesto from homegrown basil

I am going to freeze some of this pesto, so I left out the cheese in the main batch, following my former mother-in-law’s rule as well as Mark Bittman’s advice in How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, one of my favorite go-to cookbooks. I’ve added some as I went using this on some chicken breasts the other night but will freeze the rest without the cheese.

My basil this year is the best I have grown yet. It is flavorful and produces plenty of leaves! I’ve used in Thai curry, tomato caprese salad, pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil, etc.   But somehow I hadn’t yet made pesto!  So I will be making lots of pesto over the next few weeks. The plant is starting to flower a lot and I don’t want to lose it all!

homegrown basil

I picked a huge branch of it and trimmed the leaves off, not worrying about the smaller stems but definitely discarding the woody thick ones.  I left a few flowers in.  After trimming, I rinsed them all off in a salad spinner and then spun them dry.

• 2 cups of loosely packed basil leaves, rinsed and dried
• a bit of salt, to taste
• 1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 Tbs pine nuts (you could lightly toast but I skipped this)
• 1/2 cup olive oil, maybe more
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, if you’re using immediately

I used my food processor, first blending the basil, salt, garlic, nuts and half the oil. I had to stop and scrape the sides down a few times.  Then I added the other half of the oil and finished blending it all together, tasting to adjust the salt.  As I said, earlier I did not add the cheese yet since I was planning on freezing.

Note: if you don’t have pine nuts, you can use walnuts or just leave out the nuts. My MIL used to just mix the basil, salt, and oil together, then freeze in plastic bags laid flat. She could break off a pinch here and there as she wanted some fresh basil flavor in a dish.

What’s your favorite use for pesto, other than on pasta?

I think it would have been much better with homemade dressing from the original recipe rather than bottled sauce, as is so often true!

Next on my list to try is their Tofu and Coconut Curry Soup.

Timing wise I would suggest peeling, coring and dicing the apples, then turning on the oven to preheat while you mix up the rest.

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan.

• 2 cups peeled and diced apples
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar

They also called for a topping but I totally spaced on it and forgot. It’s still delicious but if you want, crumble this together and sprinkle on top of the loaf.

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter

Beat the eggs in a bowl, the mix in the oil. Add the vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and mix. Add the flour and sugar and stir. The batter will be thick. Add the apples and stir well.

Spoon into the loaf pan. If you’re using the topping, sprinkle on top of the batter before baking.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  It’s best to let the bread cool before slicing although you may find it hard to resist as it smells so good!

Last night I made one with red onions that pretty much follows the recipe in The Everything Thai Cookbook: From Pad Thai to Lemongrass Chicken Skewers, except I left out the 2 Thai chilies, seeded and minced so add those in if you want it spicy! I saw a very similar recipe in a magazine recently that had thinly sliced radishes in it, which also sounds good. I also added some bean sprouts to a cucumber salad once and loved the double crunchiness.

• 1 cup boiling water
• 5 Tbs sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 2 -3 small cucumbers, seeded and sliced
• 1 small red onion, sliced

Mix together the hot water, sugar, salt and vinegar, then let cool to room temperature so you don’t cook the cucumbers! If you don’t have rice vinegar, you can use white vinegar.

Last night I actually got out the mandoline to make the slices really thin just for fun but you can just slice the cucumber in half lengthwise, use a small teaspoon to scrape out the seeds, then slice into half moons.

I served this with some excellent curry, similar to this  Thai red chicken curry. I used a mix of peppers, bamboo shoots and peas for the vegetables.

I grew up with my mom making a quick pickled cucumber salad, similar to this quick cucumber salad recipe (and my mom’s old recipe is on that page as well.)  I’ve also played around with cucumbers and sour cream.  And then there’s this one with an Asian flare to it.   (And if you’re looking for a different salsa, this cucumber and grape salsa is fantastic!)

Tonight we used it on some burritos made with some leftover bbq’d steak, black beans, and sliced avocados.

• 2 large beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• a handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• a few good squirts of lime juice
• 2 small cloves of garlic, minced
• salt to taste

Stir and mix, taste and adjust seasonings as per your tastes.