Eggplant spread.

- 4 eggplants
- 1 big onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- olive oil
- salt, pepper


This is one of the best spreads at all. Don't let you fool by the boring colour - it's amazing. Go ahead, you eggplant lovers.

First the eggplants have to be baked. Put them in the oven as they are, just cut the skin once or twice with a knife or they could explode in your oven. This happened to me many years ago and you don't want to a have a oven full of eggplant slobber so please avoid this. In a gas oven at gas mark 6-7 they need around 30 minutes. Once they're very soft and done, let them cool completely.
Then cut them into halves and scrape out everything you get off the skin with a table spoon. 

Finely chop the onion and smash the garlic. Fry in 2-3 table spoons olive oil until translucent. Then add the baked eggplants and stir for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, you can also add a tiny bit of lemon juice. 
Blend everything with a handheld blender until smooth. 


This spread is already very good when it's still warm. The best thing is to put in the fridge and wait until it's completely cool. Enjoy on white bread, baguette or whatever. Out of the above-mentioned ingredients I got a tiny bit more than 1 and 1/2 cup of spread.

Baked eggplant with red potatoes.

1 eggplant
red potatoes (you can use regular potatoes, too. but these are so pretty.)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
thyme
rosemary
1 tomato 
1 carrot
béchamel sauce (made from vegan butter, flour, soymilk, salt, pepper, nutmeg, squeeze of lemon juice and/or 1 teaspoon mustard)
salt, pepper, bay leave
oil

Cut eggplant in half and scoop out most of each half to make eggplant shells.
Cut onion and garlic finely into small cubes. Fry in 2-3 tablespoons oil together with fresh thyme and rosemary until the onions start to get translucent.  

Cut the scooped out parts of the eggplant and add to onions and garlic, stir well. Add a finely diced tomato. Fry for 3 or 4 minutes, the eggplant hasn't to be done, as it will bake for over 20 minutes.
Cut a carrot into thin stripes. 
Fill a casserole with 1-2 cm cold water. Place eggplant halfs into casserole and fill with the fried eggplant-onion-mix. Put carrot sticks and one or two bay leaves around the eggplants, season with salt and pepper.

Cover the eggplants with a thick batch of béchamel sauce. A part of it will drop into the water during baking time and melt together with the water to a delicious sauce. The rest will remain on top of the eggplants and will build a yummy, thick, golden, slightly crusty béchamel layer.

Cover the casserole with tin foil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. First 10 minutes on high heat, then reduce to medium heat. Also, after the first 10 minutes you can prepare your potatoes and cook them for about 20 minutes with a little salt.

After the casserole has been in the oven for 20 minutes, remove tin foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the béchamel looks golden, slightly brown and crusty.

Serve with a few potatoes (drizzle a little bit of the sauce over them).

 

The eggplant is so tender, it's unbelievable.

Chard-eggplant-tofu-dish w/ potatoes.

As far as I remember this contained chard, eggplant, tofu and lots of garlic. Together with potatoes and fresh parsley.

Spaghetti Squash!

Another recipe in the "looks bland - tastes terrific"-category. And it's pumpkin and sqash season. And oh, I love the word squash. Sounds (and looks) more like a noise than a vegetable. Squash! Squashsquash!

This.....is a spaghetti squash:

I halfed my spaghetti squash and cooked it for 30 minutes unpeeled in very salty water with bay leaves. 

 After cooking it looks like this:

 

Now you can scrap out with a scoop the squash seed first and then the good part - the "spaghettis". The taste of this squash is quite neutral so you can use any hearty sauce you would use for pasta. I made it this time with a great creamy coconut-sauce with eggplants and sweetheart cabbage.

While the squash (!) is still cooking, cut eggplant into cubes, mince the garlic and fry both in 1 teaspoon oil, then add a little water, just to cover the eggplant.

Cook eggplant for about 5-10 minutes until almost all the water has gone. Cut the sweetheart cabbage into small pieces and add with another little water to the eggplants. Cook for 2 minutes, then add either coconut cream (liquid) oder a bit more water and the creamed coconut I used. It's a firm block as you can see in the pictures above, I used 100g and it melts in the hot water. I spiced this with vegetable broth, salt, pepper, a hint of curry. Cook all things together for another 5 minutes, then add fresh cilantro leaves. Serve with the hot squash spaghettis. (My squash was good for about 4-5 big portions altogether). Squash!

Eggplant-Tofu-Spinach with fried bell pepper, apples and dip.

This was so delicious and the combination of all these veggies are quite perfect!

- 1 eggplant
- 200g tofu
- 500g spinach
- 2 small red bell peppers
- 4 tablespoons soy yoghurt
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- 1 small sourish apple

Prepare spinach and stew in a little water for only a few minutes. Stew slices of eggplant and apple in 1 teaspoon oil and a little water. Just add as much water as cover the bottom of your pan. This avoids greasy eggplants.



Flip them once and fry at low heat. Season with salt and pepper. If ready, put eggplants and apple slices on a plate and fry tofu and bell pepper in 1 teaspoon oil.

For the dip: Mix soy yoghurt with mustard, salt and pepper and -optional- vegan parmesan.

Layer eggplants, spinach and tofu to get small towers and serve with bell peppers, apples and dip.