Cooking Vegetables

~ Laura

29eat-articleLargeI'm cooking up a ton of new things this summer. We're trying to make vegetables the star of the dinner with simple grilled meat and a small pile of boring carbs that will fill the kids' bellies. 

Last night, I made this ginger carrot soup. There are more complicated recipes out there for this soup, but simple is good, too. If you feel fancy, you could add a potato or yogurt to thicken up. More flavor can be added with curry powder, honey, thyme, orange juice, or bourbon. 

Instead of making meatballs with the standard pork-veal-beef combo, I went with turkeymeatballs. I didn't really need a recipe, but I tried out Giada's version of turkey meatballs. I thought grating the onion, instead of chopping it, made the meatballs a little watery. It needed more bread crumbs to pull it together. 

Eggplants are arriving in my CSA today. Eggplants are problematic, because Steve and I LOVE them and the kids won't touch them, so I'll be cooking two meals every night. Mark Bittman's grilling suggestions for eggplant are fantastic. 

Published by Laura

12 thoughts on “Cooking Vegetables”

  1. I made an eggplant curry recently that was quite tasty. Eggplant is common in Indian and thai food, of course. And that makes it very yummy. 🙂

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  3. I even cut the olive oil down to 2 T and he couldn’t tell.
    I have no idea how far into “healthy” you have to get before olive oil is something you can cut to make a dish lighter, but I do know that I never want to go there.

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  4. Oh, it is really healthy, but I was trying to push the envelope (because I’m that way). The oil is the worst thing in the whole dish, so I decided to see if I could make it even less calories.
    The dish is basically roasted veggies with a dollop of tomato paste. The olive oil was the least healthy part.

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  5. Thanks for the link to Bittman’s eggplant recipes. The Asian version looks amazing and amazingly simple. I’m not even kidding when I say I’m going to buy eggplant today so I can make that for dinner. My mouth is watering.

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  6. All Bittman recipes are fab! Search on the nyt website for his salads, grilling recipes and picnic recipes from a few years back. You can print each collection out. Each is a 101 recipes. Few ingredients and easy techniques and stunningly yummy.

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  7. Japanese, Chinese and Thai cuisines are the major areas of cooking that I’ve done very little of in my life, and that’s changed with a vengeance since I got back from Japan. On the whole, I’ve been really pleased with how much some of the stuff I’ve done puts vegetables into the meal in a different way than my other cooking.

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  8. Georgian (the country)is also a great source for eggplant recipes. Then, just tell the kids that they will eat it or go hungry. Eventually they will thank you. You wouldn’t give them their way on bedtime, and this is probably more important.

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  9. Eggplant has some texture issues for less sophisticated eaters.
    I personally am a fan of something I’ve had in Russia with a name like “caviar from eggplant” (???). I can’t even think of the Russian name (baklazhannay ikra??? ikra iz baklazhana???). It’s sort of eggplant salsa and might make a good canning project. Here’s a recipe. I don’t know if this particular one is any good, but it gives the general idea:
    http://www.dailymunch.com/recipe-collection/appetizer/baklazhannaya-ikra-eggplant-caviar-odessa-style.html
    Costco used to sell something in the same ballpark in the hummus section.

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  10. Personally, I would have to be very hungry before I ate any eggplant. Mostly I just eat the cheese and sauce off the top and leave the eggplant.

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  11. I had the most amazing eggplant parmesan last night, made by a friend of mine. It could be an Italian thing–do Italians tend to like eggplant more because of the ubiquitousness (ubiquity?) of eggplant parmesan?

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  12. Bless you for posting the eggplant link! Our plants are quite prolific this year. Just made 2 pounds of babaganoush this past weekend, and the fruits keep coming . . .

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