Weekend Appetizer: Trio of Zippy Summer Veggies for bread or lettuce cups

Although fall is beginning to creep in (though you could not tell with 103 degree weather) as evidenced by swim suits banished from store racks, temporary Halloween stores moving in, e-mails about Restaurant Week, and a sign at the farmer's market "we still have peaches", I am still delighting in the challenge of the seemingly never ending supply of peppers, cucumbers, squash and lettuce. That is the beauty of the CSA box-when you get the same things multiple weeks in a row it really gets your noggin going about different ways to try eating the vegetables. 

This week my challenge was lettuce-I do salads (today was tuna sashimi with bean sprouts, japanese seaweed salad and some mae ploy sauce to combat the warm weather), spring rolls, Vietnamese noodle salad (bun), Japanese somen noodle salad (using a rice noodle now of course), tacos and bedding for enchiladas. I even tried doing a baked lettuce dish once a few years ago (I pretty much took the whole thing home from the potluck I brought it to).  Even with this variety I get to the point where I do not want to order salad out at a restaurant.

So what to do with the dreaded iceberg-my least favorite as it tastes like nothing. My train of thought: What goes well with "nothing"?  Something really flavorful that needs a partner that lets it shine. Then the light bulb, ohhh-Eggplant tapenade that I made a couple years back! Buttery soft eggplant when cooked right, hob nobbing with Italian herbs and zesty tomato, could be lovingly plopped into lettuce cups. Or if you happen to have a fresh batch of bread (I really adore this bun recipe . You must use a scale, but has worked magically with whatever combo of gluten free flours I have in the pantry.)

Eggplant tapenade, roasted peppers and marinated mushrooms-made 3 light servings

This makes for a fine appetizer or light meal. Plan to make this on a weekend when you have lots of time or grab some helping hands for prepping and measuring ingredients.

 

 To start get your oven preheated to 400F OR You could probably try putting this on the grill if you want to avoid turning on the oven in the summer heat (not sure what the cooking times are like) but use foil on the eggplant to keep the sauce in and if you have one, a metal cooking basket on the peppers.

 Eggplant tapenade adapted from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook

1.5 tsp salt*

2 tsp olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 tbsp minced garlic

½ tsp dried basil

½ tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp tomato paste

     

      1.       Peel and dice the eggplant. I chopped up the skin and saved it to add in later.

           2.   Remove bitter juices from eggplant. *See options below if sodium is of concern to your diet.

Option 1: sprinkle with ½ tsp of salt and place on paper towels (or tea towel for lint free-no-paper-wasting) to drain.  This will help remove the bitterness from eggplant.

Option 2 (low sodium)  I researched online and BDL at cheftalk.com says you could try using less bitter eggplant such as Japanese variety   or younger, smaller Italian eggplant  

 

Option 3 (low sodium) BDL also says  you can cook twice to remove the bitterness. For this recipe you can sauté the eggplant a few minutes and drain on a towel/tea towel and then add into the tomato sauce in the next step. 

     3.        Heat the oil over medium high heat in a medium saucepan (oven proof it you have it), adding the onion (and eggplant skin chopped up if you like), stir often and cook about 1 minute.  Add remaining salt, basil and oregano. Continue stirring and cook 1 minute more. Add in the tomato paste and eggplant. Cook until eggplant begins to soften about 3 minutes.

    4.       Transfer into a baking dish if your sauce pan isn’t oven proof. Place in the oven to bake uncovered about 30-35 minutes. Stirring once or twice during this time, checking to see if eggplant is completely softened.

Roasted Peppers from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook

1 red and 1 yellow sweet pepper, cut into ¼” thick slices

½ tsp red wine vinegar

1-2 tsp olive oil

    1.        Mix the red wine vinegar and olive oil together. Drizzle over the peppers in a bowl and toss to coat evenly.

    2.       Spread out on foil atop a baking sheet. Keep in the oven about 25-30 minutes with the eggplant, until tender and some charring on the peppers occurs.

Marinated Mushrooms-from Vegetarian cookbook edited by Nicola Graimes.

8 ounces brown cremini or white button mushrooms, washed and quartered

2 tsp ketchup

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp milk substitute (I used hemp milk)

While your eggplant and peppers are roasting in the oven.  Put mushrooms into a small saucepan with ketchup, lemon juice and milk. Simmer for 5 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated and mushrooms are tender.

What are you going to be doing for Halloween? Have you ever been a food object?