Two delicious ways to eat eggplant without an oven

No this isn't a fashion blog all of a sudden. When I came home from work on Monday, I discovered that H had organized half of my shoes all in a pretty row. She LOVES my shoes, and she treats them right too!


The first way to eat eggplant without turning on the oven:
This week I made one of my favorite Greek vegetable dishes, and if I do say so myself, it was truly delicious. So tasty in fact that we couldn't get any pictures of it! We bought a gigantic globe of an eggplant as well as 2 pints of green beans from our CSA, so I decided to make a Greek λαδερά (literally oily, but typically just stove-cooked vegetables) dish out of them. As long as you're willing to sit near the kitchen and stir every 15 minutes or so for an hour and a half, this dish is virtually effortless.

Eggplant and Green Bean Giahni (φασολάκια γιαχνί με μελιτζάνες)
This makes 2 quarts or so.
1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 pints fresh green beans, tips trimmed and halved
1 large or two medium eggplant, cubed to 1-2 inch pieces
1 large green pepper, sliced
28 oz can diced tomatoes
3 dried hot peppers
salt and pepper to taste
water, if needed (we used 3/4 cups)

This recipe hardly needs directions, it's so straightforward. What you do need is a good large stockpot or dutch oven.

Saute onions in 1/4 oil until they turn caramel colored. Add green pepper, eggplant, and green beans. Saute for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes and hot peppers, salt, and water to submerge the veggies if it bothers you that they aren't all in liquid at the beginning of cooking.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

This dish is perfect with crusty bread, a thick slice of feta cheese, and a glass of wine.

The Second way to eat eggplant without turning on the oven:
We love eggplant around here, so we've stocked up on not only the large globe eggplants, but also on the long and slender Chinese eggplants. Tonight I made a quick stir-fry with eggplant, edamame, tomatoes, and bok choy.

Eggplant, Bok Choy and Edamame
Serves 3-4
2 cups edamame
2 heads of bok choy, greens and white stalk separated and chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 Chinese eggplant, sliced
Olive oil or vegetable oil for stirfry
2 smallish tomatoes, quartered or smaller
soy sauce
maple syrup
Chili paste with garlic
sesame oil

Stirfry the white stalk of the bok choy until it loses its rawness. Add garlic and bok choy greens, edamame and eggplant.
Mix up the sauce, and reduce the heat on the stirfry to medium low. Add the sauce and cook for 3-5 minutes. In the last minute, toss in the tomato.
We loved this dish with brown rice.



And a bonus, the kid version, edamame, bok choy, and brown rice without the spicy sauce