September 18

Welcome back to the blog! We all did have a busy August, didn't we? We have gottent o the farmer's market two weekends in a row. With last weeks haul I made the corn chowder for Christmas Eve, some wonderful chicken chili and french casserole.

Eggplant Lasagne Inspired by the Farmers Market

At the Farmer's market we bought:

Wonderful fresh perfect clean Spinach (About 3/4 cup after sauteing olive oil)

Tomatoes (I used about 10 of them)

Onions ( I used 2 in the tomato sauce and about one fairly small one in the cannellini beans)

Eggplant ( I used about 1 1/2 medium large)

Basil (I used about 1/4 cup, measured after it was chopped)

We stopped at the coop on the way home and bought

Garlic (I used about 1/2 of a large head)

Cannellini Beans ( I cooked 2 cups but didn't use all of them)

I wasn't happy with the mushrooms at the coop so we stopped at Lunds and bought a couple of boxes

The Beans

I started by preparing the beans. I washed them and very slowly brought them to a boil and then let them soak for about three hours.

When I was really ready to cook, I drained the beans and sauteed an onion in the bottom of the pressure cooker. I added 3 cups of homemade chicken broth (just use water or vegetable broth if you want a real vegetarian dish.) from the freezer and the drained beans and very slowly brought the pressure up. I didn't even let it start dancing when I took it off and let it set until the pressure went down all by itself. I have about a cup a half of beans and liquid left now that I have finished the dish. The beans and the cooking liquid are delicious. I'm not sure if we will use them for a salad or rewarm them and eat them straight up tomorrow.

The Tomato Sauce

I sauteed 2 chopped onions and 4-5 cloves of minced garlic in some lovely Greek olive oil. I blanched (dipped in boiling water for about 30 seconds) peeled, trimmed and chopped the tomatoes.and added them to the onions and garlic

I added chopped basil, a bay leaf and a teaspoon or so of thyme and about a teaspoon each of brown and white sugar and 2-3 cloves of pressed garlic. I cooked this down to about half and added 6 oz of tomato paste . This was really great all alone. I a may make more to use for spaghetti.

The Mushrooms

washed, sliced and sauteed in olive oil

The Spinach

washed, trimmed from the stems and sauteed in olive oil

Eggplant

I cut it into about 3/8 inch sliced and brushed both sides with Olive oil. It turned about that after almost an hour in the oven at 325 the eggplant still wasn't quite done. So either pre-bake the eggplant for a half hour or so or bake the whole business covered for an hour and ten minutes and then add the cheese and bake it another 20 minutes or so.

Putting it together

In a couple of Steve's square casseroles I layered things. I had about 3 layers of tomato, 2 layers each of beans and sliced eggplant and one layer each of spinach and mushrooms. The third smaller casserole was quite shallow and I was running out of stuff so there was just one layer of each thing except a couple of skimpy layers of tomato. I topped it with thinly sliced mozzarella cheese and started out by baking it at 325 for slightly under one hour. It turned about that after almost an hour in the oven at 325 the eggplant still wasn't quite done. I baked it for another half hour at 350 and then the cheese was over-baked. So either pre-bake the eggplant for a half hour or so or bake the whole business covered for an hour and ten minutes and then add the cheese and bake it another 20 minutes or so.

We all liked it! Linnea cooks tomorrow.