Oven Roasted Eggplant "Chips" with Onions and Peppers

I picked all the last tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and peppers last night to keep them from the frost. I actually don't know if it did freeze last night, but it seems certain tonight, so I was ahead of the game. I ended up with lots of green tomatoes, and some mini-veggies: zucchini the size of my thumb, eggplants that fit entirely in my hand, etc. I was looking over my blog posts from a year ago, and at this time I was eating my last kabocha squash of the season (they were out at the co-ops by this time), which suggests to me that the whole gardening season really was 4-6 weeks behind this year. I only just pulled in all the winter squash so that they can finish "curing" in the house. The winter squash are still sort of a garden experiment, so I am hoping the curing helps them sweeten up some more.

My fave fall veggie of the last week or two is eggplant. I actually bought extra at the Midtown farmer's market last weekend (last market of the year) with the hopes of making my cousin's Georgian Eggplant Rolls (but with roasted red pepper instead of garlic). But I don't know if I'll make it because I keep eating the eggplants roasted in the oven, almost like a big chip or plank, chewy and crunchy and creamy at the same time. They are so good this way, especially with some roasted onion/peppers. Roasted tomato is also good (just toss in some thickly sliced tomato or tomato halves in the oven too).

This recipe is very loose. You can't go wrong really - just be careful not to totally char the eggplant. I gave amounts here, but really just use what you have and what you are hungry for! *I still am without camera, but here is a photo of what the eggplant should look like (these are slightly less charred pieces, so you want to go just a little longer to get them crunchy) when finished.

Roasted Eggplant "Chips"
2 med. Eggplant
1/2 c + Olive oil
Salt
1-2 peppers (red/orange is nice)
1 large onion

Turn oven to 400 degrees. Slice eggplant 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. I do this lengthwise because I like the aesthetics of it. Pour many, many glugs of olive oil into a rimmed baking sheet or cake pan. I easily use close to 1/2 cup of olive oil just for the eggplant because it soaks it up. Let it! I used to feel sort of stingy about using olive oil or fats (pre-paleo living) and now that I am not, it is quite liberating to just pour a bunch of olive oil in the pan and let that eggplant luxuriate in it! Make sure to flip the eggplant slices so that both sides are covered in olive oil. Lay the eggplant in a single layer and sprinkle with some sea salt. Stick in the oven - bottom rack.

While the eggplant starts roasting, cut the onion and pepper into large wedges. The onion will separate of course, and that is just fine. Put both onions and peppers in a cake pan (they will not need to lay in a single layer, so they can cram in a bit) and pour some olive oil over the top again. You don't need as much here - a few glugs, and than give things a stir to coat and toss on a little salt. Stick these in the oven on the top rack.

After about 10-12 minutes, go flip the eggplant slices. They should be starting to brown/caramelize on the bottom. It's hard to get uniform pieces, so the thinner ones will be more browned than the thicker ones. They are all good. Stir the onions/peppers too. They should also be starting to char and brown just a bit. *If things are not getting a little char on them, you can also do a little broiler action here and stick each pan under the broiler for a few minutes. But it's not necessary.

After another 6-10 minutes, things should be approaching done. You want the thinner eggplant slices to be chip-like, and the thicker ones to be nice and golden with a firmer edge. The peppers and onions should be at a similar state of soft/charred.

I love eating the eggplant planks with my fingers (almost like bruschetta or a cracker) with a little onion and pepper on top. Yum! (They would probably also be good with smoked fish or pesto too...mmm!)

Baked Veggies in Eggplant Sauce

The garden harvest continues.  I picked a few handfuls of bush beans even, and I thought those had pretty much stopped so haven't even been watering them. The continued warm weather may be extending the season a bit - even my winter squash sent out some new little squashes. I didn't take a picture, but they are so cute! I've been storing various things when I have time - here are some of my efforts:

Roasted tomatoes packed in olive oil

Pesto, pickles, and roasted tomatoes!

Last week I tried one more recipe from Nigel Slater's Tender - a cookbook that I give two thumbs up based on the handful of recipes I've tried, and because of the really useful information about more casual cooking with various veggies. For example, I had never thought to pair mint with eggplant - it didn't seem to go. But he recommends mint as eggplant's best herb pairing, and it is delicious. I've thrown it on roasted eggplant, or with a roasted veggie blend of eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes.

Not surprisingly, this recipe also makes use of mint. The recipe originally calls for yogurt, but I swapped in coconut milk with a good amount of lemon juice and it was great. I am very confident I did not make this dish as he would have - I cooked the veggies long (and cut them smaller) and they were very soft, and my sauce to "drizzle" over the top was stirred in and the whole thing became more of a stew-like affair. Regardless of my liberties, it was a really incredible flavor - not like any other I've had before, and very creamy tasting and so nice with all the fresh garden vegetables.

Baked Veggies with Eggplant Sauce from Tender
serves 4

Garden Veggies (cut smaller than recipe calls)

Sauce:
2 large eggplants
olive oil
scant 1/2 cup coconut milk 
3 T lemon juice
handful chopped mint leaves
salt and pepper

Veggies:
4 large tomatoes (or several smaller ones)
3 zucchini, quartered length wise
2 bell peppers, cored and thickly sliced
onion, peeled and cut in wedges
olive oil
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp hot sauce
handful pine nuts
handful raisins

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut eggplant in half lengthwise and score the flesh with several deep etches (helps the oil penetrate). Sprinkle with salt and set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Wipe off salt, place in baking dish, and pour a few glugs of olive oil over the top and bake until soft (cut side down). You should be able to crush the flesh with a fork. Mine baked about 45 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, put tomatoes, peppers, onions and zucchini in roasting pan. Toss with oil and salt and roast 45 min-1 hour. (Shoot for getting the veggies in about 15-20 minutes after the eggplant started to time things best.)
4. When eggplant is soft and cooled just enough to handle, scrape eggplant flesh from skin and mash with coconut milk-lemon and enough olive oil to make a paste that is thin enough to drizzle. *I had a hard time with this - my eggplant had cooled a lot, so maybe that is why. I just didn't want to add more olive oil than I had already, so mine was a bit thicker. Season with salt, pepper, and mint. If you are using coconut milk and it tastes weird, you need more lemon and more salt. It should not taste at all coconut-y.
5. Toward the end of cooking for the veggies, gently stir in cumin, hot sauce (I used sriracha), pine nuts, and raisins. Finish roasting.
6. Serve veggies drizzled with eggplant sauce (or in my case, just mix it all up in a bowl!! so good)

My version was not the most picturesque - but don't let that stop you! I used golden raisins, and there are so few, but they sneak a nice bit of sweet in there.

Venison Liver with Onions, Bacon, and Sage

After a year of some concerted effort to eat more of it, I have come to enjoy and savor the flavor of liver. Eating liver makes me feel happy and nourished, like I am being good to my body. I love when I cook it just right and it tastes perfectly tender. This recipe is my current fave - using whatever kind of liver (venison, chicken, calf, lamb) - especially now when there is abundant fresh sage. I did try this with beef liver too - and it was still pretty good, but you know, liver-y. The venison livers I have are often from younger deer, so they resemble calf more than full grown beef. Beef livers are a bit full flavored. Whichever liver, I have finally learned to cook it well, which is to say, I have learned not to over-cook it. As Jennifer McLagan writes in Odd Bits, "Seared crisp on the outside and meltingly tender on the inside, enriched with butter and spread on toast or quickly grilled with a warm and creamy center - well prepared liver is sublime." Yes. Sublime. 

This recipe (originally for calf's liver) is from Odd Bits, a cookbook I am hoping to explore more this winter. It is a cookbook full of recipes to cook the "odd" parts of an animal: tongue, sweetbreads, brain and tripe - among MANY others. I am currently happy in the liver section, whose introduction asserts that every cuisine has a liver specialty. I have looked up some of the ones she mentions, plus a few others to return to for liver inspiration later:  

• Italian fegato all veneziana
• Jewish chopped chicken liver 
• Eastern European liver dumplings and liver in cream sauce
• Chinese stir-fried liver 
• German braunschweiger, a liver sausage
• English (and Irish) liver and bacon
• Finland's maksalaatikko, a dessert of liver and rice pudding flavored with syrup and raisins
• Persian del va jegar, chicken heart and liver (and a liver and lung too)
• Paraguay's higado 
• Portuguese peri-peri
• Ethiopian dulet, a blend of beef, tripe, and liver 

Dulet Photo

The last one is the one I am most intrigued by, at least at this moment. I have not found a recipe, but the link above likens the dulet to kitfo, which I may have mentioned once or 1000 times that I LOVE, and in fact the author of the link prefers the dulet. I did find that Dilla's on the west bank in Minneapolis serves Dulet (neither Fasika or Blue Nile do), so maybe it is worth venturing there. In the meanwhile, I will enjoy this liver and onions take on things (modified slightly from Odd Bits):

Venison Liver with Onions, Bacon, and Sage
Serves 2
2 thick slices bacon, double smoked if possible
1/4 c duck fat (I used butter)
3 onions, halved and thinly sliced
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper
16 sage leaves, finely shredded
9 oz liver (or more!)
coconut flour
1+ T sherry vinegar

1. Cut the bacon into 1/4 inch strips. Heat half the fat in a frying pan over medium heat and add the bacon and onions. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring often, until the onions are softened and colored, then stir in the sage and keep warm in a 200 degree oven. *For best results and added fussiness, also put two dinner plates in the oven to warm.
2. Dust the liver slices lightly with coconut flour (you don't need much) and season with salt and pepper. In another frying pan, just big enough to hold the liver slices, heat the remaining fat over high heat. When the fat is hot, add the liver and cook until you see beads of blood on the top surface of the liver, 45 seconds to 1 minute, turn and cook on the other side for about 30 seconds, or until you again see beads of blood form. Transfer the liver to (warm) plates.
3. Add vinegar to the pan, stir to deglaze, scraping up the browned bits, and then add the pan juices to the onion mixture. Top the liver with onion mixture (or as in my photo, top onions with liver) and serve.

Fermented onions and radishes!

I had some spare onions and radishes the other week, and, inspired by my lacto-fermenting fiend of a friend, decided to pickle them via fermentation. Yum!

These are the jars before fermentation

 A few notes about lacto-fermented pickles:
1) fermenting things is so easy
2) they taste amazing
3) they are super good for you and your digestive system

No matter what you are going to ferment, you will need a brine mixture of this ratio:
2 c. water to 1 1/2 T sea salt - or - 1 quart water to 3 T sea salt.
Be sure to use the fine grained sea salt and not the rocky stuff. I heated a portion of the water so the the salt would dissolve better, and than topped it off with cool water to the appropriate ratio. (You want the brine to be room temp or cool when you add it to the veggies, not warm.)

Your big decision is what to ferment! Some things may require a quick blanching first (green beans, brussel sprouts) or cooking (beets), but many things just can be fermented in their raw state (onions, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower). You do want to be careful to use veggies that are in good shape and not bruised. Whatever you choose, the basic idea is to put some spices in a jar (peppercorns, dill, garlic, hot peppers, mustard seeds, etc) and than fill the rest of the jar with your chosen item or blend. Pour the cooled brine over the top and make sure that all veggies/herbs/spices are submerged. Note: Keeping everything submerged can be challenging, but tuck beans under or pack radishes down and fill the jar all the way to the brim. Screw the lid on the jar tightly.

Now comes the part where you leave the jar out for several days to weeks for it to ferment. You will need to "burp" the jars each day to release the pressure - mine often end up spilling over the counter, leaking from the jar lid because of the fermenting process inside (I perhaps don't screw mine tightly enough, but just as well so the jars don't break!) This is all good and means the pickles are getting really tasty, just wipe it up and watch all the bubbles rise to the top in the jar. The best way to tell that your pickles are done is to taste them. You want to taste for nice pickle flavor - and there is no going wrong here. Some people like a mild ferment, others want it really strong. There will be a point where the active fermentation process ends - there will no longer be bubbling or overflow from the jar, so you can also use that as your done meter. Once you decide your pickles are ready, move them to cold storage (I put mine in the fridge) and eat them or store them for a long while. A year or more, so long as it is airtight and covered with the brine.

For my radishes:
I chopped them in half and had just enough to fill a pint jar. I have lots of dill going to seed in the garden, so I plucked several of the seed "heads" to stick in the jar. I also tossed in some black peppercorns, and would have put in mustard seed if I had any. Garlic and a hot pepper would have been great too, but I was out. My radishes were ready after 4 days, and they turned a nice pink color. These were great with a burger, in salad, or just plain for a snack.




For the onions:
I used red onions because that is what I had, and I thought they would look really pretty. I am a little sensitive to raw onions, so I was excited to ferment some to put in stuff without needing to cook them or soak them in vinegar first. This worked out great - they were still onion-y, but less sharp. They were perfect in salad and on burgers - really you could eat them on anything. I didn't use any spices with these, just the brine, and they also turned pink. The onions took longer and the juice kept spilling over the jar - it was about a week or 8 days when I liked the flavor best and called them done!

5 Ingredient French Onion Soup (paleo)

The local onions have been very nice at the co-op lately - most notably that they are very LARGE! One of my staples of late is French Onion soup. I posted a GF version about two years ago (my first FO soup ever) and I have since simplified things down to this very basic, but delicious recipe.  I do think that part of why this soup tastes so good is due to the venison Bone Broth. I have not done a post about bone broth, but fellow Minneapolitan blogger at Sustainable Paleo has, and really, bone broth tastes about 10 times better than anything you can buy (and is really good for you and your bod). So, I cannot vouch for this soup if you are having it with store bought broth, but with bone broth, it is super good and very easy and you don't need any other herbs/spicing.

5 Ingredient French Onion Soup (serves 4)
4 T. butter or ghee
3 large onions
2-3 pints Venison/Beef Bone Broth
3/4 c. dry wine (either white or red seems to work fine - but dryer is better)
celtic sea salt (in my experience this salt makes soup more flavorful than any other)

1. Slice onions as thinly as you feel motivated to go for - the thinner the better to carmelize and be silky in your soup.
2. In a heavy pot, turn heat on medium heat and melt the butter. Add onions. Stir every so often and keep your eye on the onions. This is the carmelizing stage, and it takes a bit of time. You want the onions to turn nice and brown, so keep plodding along until they get there.
3. Pour in wine and stir/scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze any buttery-onion bits that might have stuck there. Add broth (2 pints will be a thicker soup, 3 will be more broth-y! Both are good). Bring to a boil and let simmer for a few-10 minutes.
4. Salt to taste - it generally takes more than I think - a Tablespoon or two. Serve!
(Sometimes, depending on the wine, I do want a little acid in there, in which case it becomes 6 ingredients and I add a splash of cider vinegar...)

French Onion Soup

Cold winter days can make me yearnful for french onion soup. For years in high school I worked at the Hotel Sofitel where French Onion soup was the order de rigueur. The cheese melted over the top and crusted around the bowl...yum. I don't have the oven-proof serving bowls yet, so I made a mini soup pot version. It turns out that the soup is relatively easy, just time consuming to carmelize the onions.
Serves 6
1 T butter
2 T olive oil
4 large onions, finely sliced
2-5 garlic cloves
1 t sugar
1/2 t dried thyme
2 T flour (I used GF flour)
1/2 c. dry white wine (I used red!)
2 1/4 quarts beef stock
2 T brandy (optional)
6 slices thick french bread, toasted (I had GF bread)
3 c. gruyere or swiss cheese, grated

In a large heavy bottomed saucepan, heat butter and oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook 10-12 minutes until soft.

Set aside one garlic clove and chop the rest. Add to onions with sugar and thyme, and continue cooking over medium heat for 35 minutes until the onions are brown, stirring frequently.

Sprinkle the flour over and stir until well blended. Stir in wine and stock and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam from the surface. Lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Stir in brandy, if using.

Heat the broiler. Rub toasted bread with garlic. Place 6 flameproof soup bowls on a cookie sheet and fill them 3/4 full with onion soup. Float a piece of toast in each and top with grated cheese. Broil for 3-4 minutes until cheese melts and bubbles and serve.