Eggplant

This week I've been experimenting a lot with eggplant. Here are some of the recipes I came up with.


Vegan "Fish" and Chips

"Fish"

Ingredients:

Eggplant, peeled and sliced
Flour
Egg substitute (optional)
Bread crumbs or cornmeal
Dried nori
Olive oil
Salt pepper

1)Mix flour with egg substitute and water

2)Crumble the nori and add it to batter. Add salt a pepper.

3)Heat oil in frying pan

4)Roll eggplant in batter

5)Roll eggplant in breadcrumbs

6)Fry eggplant until batter is crisp and eggplant is soft. Flip when necessary


Chips

Ingredients:

Potatoes
Olive oil
Salt

1)Slice potato in long slender pieces

2)Coat slices with oil

3)Bake for one hour. Season with salt.

Serve both together with malt vinegar


Eggplant with Garlic and Lavender

Ingredients:

Eggplant, chopped
Garlic
Lavender
Butter or margarine

1) Heat garlic and lavender in butter. (More garlic than lavender. Lavender is strong)

2) Add eggplant. Cook until soft all the way through.

Served here with asparagus and mushrooms because . . . delicious.


Eggplant and Rice

Ingredients:

Eggplant, chopped
Garlic
Olive oil
Soy Sauce
Ginger
Red pepper
Rice

1)Heat garlic in oil

2)Add soy sauce and spices

3)Add eggplant. Cook until soft

Serve with rice

Vegan, Gluten Free Lasagna

Using eggplant instead of pasta for lasagna has been a trend lately but, in case you wanted help in your experimentation of the idea, here is the way I make it.

Apart from being gluten free, it really does taste better than pasta, which is, for me, too heavy and thick to eat very much of and doesn't have the rich, complex flavor eggplant does.

Ingredients:

Half an eggplant ($0.50)
Can of tomato paste ($1.50)
Around 4 oz of vegan mozzarella cheese ($2.50 --yeah, this is a more expensive recipe, still delicious, however)
Garlic, Oregano, and Basil.


1) Mix the spices into the tomato paste.

Here it might be helpful to have exact measurements but, to be honest, I never measure my spices. I'm a strictly dash or double dash until it tastes the way I like it girl. I suppose a teaspoon of each would be a good place to start if you prefer measurements, then add or subtract depending on how you like it.

Alternately you could by a jar of pre-made sauce and forget the spices altogether. Just make sure it's thick enough because vegan mozzarella melts very thin and you don't want to end up with eggplant soup.

2) Cut the eggplant into long, thin pieces, like so

Just make sure they're thin enough to cook quickly. Eggplant is impossible to cut if it's not cooked enough

3) Layer eggplant slices, sauce, then cheese in a bowl or small casserole dish until you run out of room.


4) Bake for one hour and devour.

(served her with gluten free garlic toast)

Beans on Toast and a Room Almost of One's Own

In my room with the simple busy-day Beans on Toast



consisting of half a can of beans ($1.50) and two slices of gluten free toast ($1.00?)

Munching in my room, contemplating where and how I live . . .



In the daytime my room is mine. In the daytime it is the best room in the world.

There is a space between my bed and my bookshelf that is the perfect size for my yoga mat. My bookshelf is overflowing with old journals, books I read when I was a kid, books I read in school, books from my favorite authors, and books I'm almost sure I'll get around to reading one day.

On the other side of my bed is a piano, my chair, my table, candles and incense burners, the CD player I still use instead of an i-pod, my jewelry and figurines, the tea cabinet I bought on etsy, and the china shelf my dad made for his mom when he was a twelve year old boy scout.

My closet is a walk-in, big enough for all my clothes, my "desk" (also known as the dresser I keep my paperwork on), and the kitchen I made with an Ikea shelf, a hotplate, a toaster oven, and half a dozen brass hooks.

In the daytime my room is a haven, filled to the brim with all the things I love. Here I write and study and cook and dabble with music while drinking too much tea and nibbling carrots biscuits.

At night it is a prison.

Not every night and not just because my mom comes home in the evening and watches PBS and ABC in her half of the room. Not just because I wonder what she will say if she ever notices my copy of "Seasons of Witchery" on my shelf or the Pride button on my book bag. Not just because there is no door on the shower and I feel like an animal on display as I get ready for bed.


There is something about darkness that wakes up the mind. Your body is still and suddenly . . . you don't know things anymore. Everything you spend all day pretending in order to keep yourself from going insane disappears. The promise that everything will be all right in the end, the assurance that you are on the right path, your mental list of what you have to do next because . . . because . . . well because you are supposed to aren't you? At night you are left with a gaping hole of blackness in your mind, hungry to be filled with anything that passes by.

Some nights I fill it with wondering if I will ever leave home, how much longer my mom will be able to keep up with the house payments, if anyone will ever read my books, or if I will ever write anything as beautiful and haunting and lasting as John Keats or Lloyd Alexander or the Bronte sisters.

When that doesn't cheer me up enough I wonder what will happen to me after I die and if I would live forever if I could. I become angry with sexists and homophobes and the people who write bad television. I remember how much I hate my job and how boring and unoriginal most of my concerns are.

My room it is not a prison. The true vault is inside my mind but I would not escape it if I could because almost smothered in all the dark thoughts are a few lingering glimmers that are invisible by daylight. Memories and emotions that would never be invoked if I let my mind stay in it's business-only state of daytime busyness.

It is at night that I touch Woodworth's "Still, sad music of humanity". It is at night that I feel most alive. It is at night that my mind becomes my own.

Vegan Sunday Roast

Greetings wayward travelers. You seem to have stumbled upon my food blog, where I intend to post vegan recipes, restaurant reviews and the occasional food related sonnet. I remind you however that intentions often waver and the future is uncertain. For all I know I may end up posting detailed accounts of visits to the DMV and pictures of dolphins.

Let us hope not.

Well maybe the dolphins.

My recipes (whether or not that is what the future holds for this blog) tend to be:

Vegan (always)
Healthy (except when they aren't)
Inexpensive (when they can be)
Simple (er . . . sometimes)

Because I read too much, many of them are inspired by historical time eras or books I read.

Because I write, many of them will be food cravings disguised as research for my books.

Some are just recipes.

To begin, I present to you what I had for dinner last night. Also known as . . .

Vegan Sunday Roast

Ingredients:

One potato
A dozen or so baby carrots
Five to seven mushrooms
Two thick slices of red onion
Half a cup of frozen peas (canned would probably work too)
Vegan butter
Salt
Pepper

To begin (and also to eventually end) . . .

1) Place potato on baking dish (any kind really, I use the mini cookie sheet that came with my toaster oven). Place in oven at 400 degrees for a half an hour.

But wait! You say, shouldn't I preheat first? Yes, I answer, if you are using a regular oven, but I use my toaster oven so there isn't any preheating.

2) Pull out potato. Cut onion slices in half and arrange around potato along with carrots and mushrooms. Spoon one or two tablespoons of vegan butter on top and return to oven for one hour. For me this is two cycles of my toaster oven so I must be somewhere near to turn the dial when it goes off. An excellent time to read a book.

3) Pull roast out of oven and scatter peas on top. Return to oven for an additional half hour.

4) Pull roast out of oven. Cut open potato. Smother with another spoon of butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Consume.

Serves: One. Two if there is enough dessert.