Sunday Dinner: Roasted Tomato and Eggplant Soup Edition

I have long been a fan of the blog Serious Eats (though sometimes I do have trouble keeping up with its 15 or so posts a day) but lately it has become an integral part of my weekly menu planning.  Nick Kindelsperger’s daily Dinner Tonight column in particular has been a great source of inspiration (see pasta with bacon and corn pesto and chicken and eggplant with black bean sauce as two fairly recent examples) which is good since I have been less than thrilled with the last few issues of Everyday Food, my usual go-to for weeknight meal ideas.

Speaking of Martha, her roasted tomato and eggplant soup was the subject of one of Nick’s Dinner Tonight columns that caught my eye just last week. With its end of summer vegetables, it seemed the perfect candidate for tonight’s Sunday Dinner especially given the cool and dreary weather we had for most of the day.  It was good. I loved the mix of smooth and chunky textures this dish offered. And the cilantro added the perfect amount of brightness to the smokiness of the eggplant and curry. Served with some “bread made by hippies” (as Jason referred to the rolls I bought at yesterday’s farmers’ market) and the first Dogfish Punkin Ale of the season, it was the perfect end to a fairly relaxing weekend.

Roasted Tomato and Eggplant Soup
Adapted from Serious Eats

Ingredients:
3 pounds of Roma tomatoes, stems removed and sliced in half
½ pout of carrots, cut into ¾ inch pieces
7 cloves of garlic
1 large eggplant, diced
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 TBL olive oil
Salt and Pepper
2 teaspoons curry powder
Chopped cilantro for serving

1.  Preheat the oven to 425. Line to baking sheets with aluminum foil.
2. On one baking sheet toss tomatoes, garlic, and carrots with 2 TBL olive oil, salt, and pepper. Make sure tomatoes are cut side down.
3. On the second baking sheet toss eggplant and chickpeas with remaining olive oil, curry powder, and salt and pepper.
4. Place both baking sheets into oven and roast for 45 minutes. Halfway through, stir vegetables and rotate baking sheets.
5. Remove both baking sheets from the oven. Remove skin from tomatoes. Transfer tomatoes, garlic, carrots (and all the juices from that pan) into blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into a large pot.
6. Add eggplant and chickpea mixture to the pot. Add 2 cups of water (more or less depending on how thick you want it to be) and bring to a boil over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with cilantro and some yummy bread.

Signs of Fall

Now that it is September (!), the first signs of fall are everywhere. Pumpkin beer is popping up on restaurant menus and grocery store shelves; my teacher friends are heading back to work; wool blazers are making their way into my closet; and Hallmark is starting to put out its Christmas ornaments. But while some are starting to think of pot roast, I am still holding on to the last vestiges of summer making meals that focus on corn and tomatoes rather than meat and potatoes.

Last night, for example, I whipped up a pasta dish whose star was corn cut fresh from the cob. Cooked in bacon fat and pureed with pine nuts and parmesan, it is pesto by way of creamed corn. Once the corn is added to the long strands of tagliatelle pasta and topped with bacon and basil, the dish is almost carbonara-like in its creaminess. If I have a chance to make it again before fall is totally upon us, I think I would leave more of the corn whole. It seemed almost blasphemous to not eat it in its purest state. Other than that, and not making this recipe sooner, I have no regrets.

Pasta with Bacon and Corn Pesto
Adapted slightly from Serious Eats

Ingredients:
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, cut into lardons
3 cups of fresh corn (from about 5 ears)
1 garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup pine nuts
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
3 TBL olive oil
12 ounces of tagliatelle or other flat, wide pasta
¾ cup basil, julienned

1. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-low heat until crisp, about 10 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on paper towels.
2. Add corn and garlic to bacon fat and toss to coat. Add salt and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes until corn is tender. Reserve ¾ cup (or more) of corn. Scrape remaining corn into a food processor (or blender). Add pine nuts and parmesan and process until smooth. With the machine running, add olive oil.
3. Meanwhile cook pasta according to package directions. When done, drain pasta reserving a cup of the cooking water.
4. Add corn pesto back to the skillet and heat over low. Add ¾ of the bacon and basil. Add in pasta and toss until well coated (use cooking liquid to thin out the sauce if it is too thick). Top with remaining bacon and basil and serve.

Back to Normal

Today marks week three of my new job (first week=orientation, second week= first week of actual work) as well as my first day back in the saddle dinner-wise. Yes, after two weeks of make-ahead and/or lack luster meals, I am back with a new recipe. I guess my adjustment period is officially over (at least until I start having to work more than my required 8.5 hours)!

For my first real night back in the kitchen I decided to try a stir-fry. Protein, veggies, and a tasty sauce—all seemed like a good (and healthy) way to get back into the swing of things. The Asian-inspired Chicken and Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce definitely lived up to expectations.  The one thing I would differently next time? Add a little more heat. Otherwise, it was a pretty close to perfect weeknight meal.

Chicken and Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce
Adapted from Serious Eats

Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1 ½ inch pieces (the recipe called for thighs but you could probably use chicken breasts if you’d prefer)
1 large Asian eggplant (I used a round variety), cut into 1 inch cubes
½ medium yellow onion, large diced
½ green bell pepper, large diced
2 TBL black bean sauce
2 TBL lime juice
2 TBL honey
2 TBL fresh grated ginger
¼ teaspoon garlic-chile paste (would use more next time if you like a little heat)
1 TBL chicken stock or water
4 TBL vegetable oil

1.Whisk black bean sauce, lime juice, honey, ginger, chile-garlic paste, and water or chicken stock.
2.Pour oil into a wok (or cast iron pan if you don’t have a wok) and heat over medium-high. When hot, add chicken. Stir often for 3-4 minutes or until the chicken is done. Using a slotted spoon, remove chicken (leaving as much of the oil as you can) and set aside.
3.Add eggplant, bell pepper, and onion and cook for about 5 minutes until the eggplant is golden and tender.
4.Add chicken back to pan and pour black bean sauce over top. Stir and cook for one minute until everything is cooked through.
5.Serve with white rice.

Let Him Eat Bread

Have I told you how much Jason loves bread? Not as much as my cousin who was known for eating his weight in yeast rolls every Christmas Eve (and who ate 2/3 of The Liberty Tavern bread basket when he was in town last week), but a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I love bread too but I have come to realize that eating 3-4 dinner rolls with a meal is probably not the best thing to do on a regular basis. Jason has no such will power when it comes to bread (especially bread slathered with butter), so I have significantly cut down on the amount of bread I serve at dinnertime.

Despite this, I got it in my head this week that I needed to make some homemade bread. Maybe it’s because this is Jason’s birthday week and I am feeling more eager to please than usual (SPOILER ALERT—lots of yummy birthday dinner recipes coming your way the rest of the week!). Or maybe it’s because I am in the middle of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and have become somewhat enamored with the author’s self-sufficient lifestyle and am trying to emulate it in some small way. Whatever the reason, I made bread.

Now this is not my first bread—that honor goes to the it’s-so-good-you-will-never-believe-it’s-this-easy-to-make No-Knead Harvest Bread from King Arthur Flour. But that is a fall/winter bread to me. So I decided to give Serious Eats’ recipe for The Simplest White Bread Ever a try.

It definitely lived up to its name! It requires minimal kneading and no special equipment (unlike the no-knead method which requires a dutch oven). While it did not look as nice as the pictures that went a long with the original recipe, it was not bad for a first try.  And the taste---according to Jason it was just plain good (which is definitely a compliment). I had one piece with our big dinner salad tonight. Jason, of course, had two.  I guess it could be worse!

Yeast proofed and ready to go

 After a quick knead

 After a night's rest in the fridge

Slashed and ready to go into the oven

Simplest White Bread Ever
From Serious Eats

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons (1 package) yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 oz) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Add the sugar and yeast to the water in your measuring cup and stir to combine. If you're using anything except an instant yeast, let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the mixture is lively and bubbly. If it's instant yeast, you can continue without proofing, or let it proof to ease your mind that the yeast is alive—your choice.
2. Put the flour and salt into a medium bowl, and stir to distribute salt.
3. Add the water/yeast mixture to the bowl with the flour, and stir to combine all the ingredients.
4. Sprinkle some flour on your countertop and dump the dough mixture onto the counter. Knead for a minute or two, adding flour as necessary to keep it from sticking. You don't need to knead until the dough is stretchy and elastic - just knead until it's a nice cohesive mixture and not a lumpy, sticky, blobby mess. Form it into a ball.
5. Drizzle the olive oil into a zip-top bag and plop the dough into the bag. Make sure the dough is completely coated with olive oil, zip the top, and stash it in the refrigerator overnight.
6. The next day, take the bag out of the fridge and massage it a bit, still in the bag, to mash out all the bubbles in the dough. You may need to open the bag to let the air out, but reseal it after.
7. Leave the bag on the countertop until the dough has come to room temperature, about an hour. It will rise and expand a bit during that time.
8. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of a loaf pan.
9. Sprinkle some flour on your countertop, and dump the dough onto the counter. You don't need to squeeze every bit of olive oil out of the bag, but don't try to hold it back, either.
10. Knead and fold it a bit to incorporate the olive oil into the dough, then form the dough into a log that will fit into your loaf pan.
11. Put the loaf into the pan, cover the pan with plastic wrap, and let it rise until it has at least doubled in size. I used a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and let it rise until it was about even with the pan (1 hour or so).
12. Remove the plastic wrap, slash the top with a knife, and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, until the bread is golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
13. Let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.