Seed starting, the early birds. Hoping we’re 8 weeks from last frost.
Eggplant Japanese White Egg, Eggplant Kazakhstan, Eggplant Ping Tung, Listada di Gandia Eggplant, Black Beauty Eggplant, Celery Tendercrisp.
Turned over two more beds today. Back is killing me.
As the last of our fresh produce dwindles, we are happy to still be making fresh and exciting new recipes using 100% of our own ingredients. This Homegrown Food Challenge recipe for Eggplant Creole was suggested by the Dainty Dot, who also suggested recipes for Stuffed Poblanos and Pepper Relish.
I had always associated Creole recipes with New Orleans, but was more excited to learn that the style is more specifically influenced by cuisines of the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Asian Indian, Native American, African and of course, the American South.
The last of our yellow brandywine tomatoes.
Well, the month of October is finally over, but the influence of the Homegrown Food Challenge on our eating habits lives on. I’ll be posting a full recap of my experience shortly, so be on the look out for that.
To Download a PDF of this recipe card, click here: Eggplant Creole
As the Homegrown Food Challenge approached, Luke reached out to some of his favorite food bloggers for recipes using ingredients we grew right here in our back yard. Simply Life, a charming food blog with many seasonal recipes, suggested Eggplant Caponata.
Inspired by this recipe we set out to create a dish using only food we grew here in Massachusetts so unfortunately olives and capers were out. We substituted Nasturtium seeds for the capers because I’d read somewhere that the seeds were also known as “poor man’s capers”. They are slightly spicy. We also didn’t add the balsamic vinegar that Simply Life’s recipe called for. Instead we relied on the tangy acid of our very ripe heirloom tomatoes. We diced up all the ingredients, threw them in the skillet and let it cook for a while as we started making flour tortillas.
This recipe works great for the HGFC because it uses very few ingredients, all of which are on our list of staples. Flour, water, salt and oil. (The original recipe calls for lard but olive oil works just fine and it is probably better for you!) Basically, we mixed up the dough, divided it into balls, rolled it thinly, and threw it on a hot skillet. The tortillas puff up nicely and taste better with a little char on them.
All together this made a very filling meal. We drank home brewed beer and Luke toasted up corn kernels into little corn nuts for a snack. I thought the opposite might happen, but is it possible that I will GAIN weight on the food challenge? We’ll see. Special thanks to Simply Life for helping us with this recipe. We will surely make it again and again.
