I was quite surprised and delighted when Kitchen PLAY invited me to participate in their “30 Days of Outdoor Dining” event, which is running from June 25th through July 24th.
Once I’d agreed to the posting date, I was given the “secret ingredient” info: LAND O’ LAKES 4 Cheese Italian Blend.
Moussaka (moo-sa-KAH) is a delicious Greek dish of lamb and eggplant and tomatoes, topped with a light, fluffy custard. My mom (and no, we're not Greek, we just like good food) used to make it when we were kids, and we loved it. I have no idea why it's taken me this long to make it for my family. But anyway - I've rectified that!
Our gardens are winding down. Bill's been pulling some of the plants that are finished, and every day we get something from the few plants still producing. We've got tomatoes and peppers still ripening. Swiss chard. Pak choi. A few others. And we've got our fingers crossed that the second planting of scallions and peas and carrots will have enough time to grow and produce.
The vegetables in the photo above were from a recent harvest. The colors were so gorgeous I had to take this shot. We've got tomatoes, a cayenne pepper, a green bell pepper that now - a few days later - has turned red - and three kinds of eggplant.
The long, skinny purple eggplants sometimes grow curved, and Julia found one that looked like a "J" in among these. So Bill went through the bowl...and this is the result:
It actually looks a lot like her handwriting...
Anyway, since he spelled out one kid's name with vegetables, he had to spell the other one. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of "E" shaped produce out there. But where there's a Bill, there's a way (hahahaha - sorry, I know that was painful to read).
Oh, the fun we have.
But besides spelling your kids' names, there are other uses for eggplant. There's eggplant parmesan...baba ganoush...and there's moussaka. My mom made moussaka from time to time when we were growing up, and lately I've been thinking that it's been way too long since I've had some. So, with our modest crop of eggplants picked and ready for action, I figured that was the way to go.
And that was all just a tease, because I haven't written it up yet, or made sure the photos look good. So that's what I'm going to be doing right now, and I'll have that recipe up a little later this morning. I wish we had more eggplant. I'd make it again tonight. It's THAT good.
I couldn't come up with a better name. Or a shorter one. Unless you count the working name of "Stack" as a good title for this recipe. It works, but doesn't sound all that appetizing.
Continue reading "Grilled Salmon Cake, Polenta, Eggplant, and Pattypan Napoleon. Kind of." »
I started making dinner around nine this morning. After yesterday's summer-like heat, this morning there was a very chilly breeze shaking up the leaves and cooling things down. The perfect day to make a sauce...
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