Flat Bread and Baba Ghanoush

OMG, an update! It has been quite awhile.

We have so much eggplant in the garden it's insane, so we made baba ghanoush and flat bread today. So simple, so tasty! This recipe for flat bread was from an old Martha Stewart Living magazine, not sure which issue. It is the best flat bread I've ever had, really good.

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, and place into a large bowl of cold water. Remove from water, and peel skin off.
3. Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

source


Flat Bread

Ingredients:

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for surface
course sea salt
pinch of sugar
1 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp olive oil, plus more for bowl and drizzling

Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water. Let sit 10 minutes, until foamy. Stir well. Combine flour and salt. Add yeast mixture and oil. Mix until dough forms, then begin to knead on lightly floursed surface. Knead 3-5 minutes. Shape into ball and place into oiled bowl. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about an hour. Punch dough, divide into 4 pieces. Roll into 6 inch rounds. Drizzle each round with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Place on inverted baking sheet and let cook in 450 degree oven for approx 12 minutes. Let cool, then cut each in half crosswise and serve.

Pasta with Peanut Sauce

I had an intense PMS craving for peanut butter and carbs. MMm. I used spaghetti, but you can use any kind of pasta you have around!

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 small chopped bell pepper
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tbsp minced ginger root
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 jalapeno pepper, minced
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
• 3 tbsp honey

Directions

Heat oil over medium heat. Saute onions and bell pepper for a few minutes. Add garlic, jalapeno, and ginger. Cook and stir about 2 minutes. Stir in peanut butter, water, soy sauce, and honey. Whisk until smooth.

Pita Bread & Hummus

We eat a LOT of hummus around here. With veggies from the garden, pita bread, pita chips, etc. I don't know why I didn't think of making it myself before, especially the pita bread! It was a lot easier than I thought it was be and I'm happy with the results. The family is happy, as well!

For the pita bread, I used this recipe from Allrecipes, though I made some changes also. (my changes in purple)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/8 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (I used 2 cups all-purpose, 1 cup whole-wheat)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

DIRECTIONS

1. Place all ingredients in bread pan of your bread machine, select Dough setting and start. When dough has risen long enough, machine will beep.
2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll and stretch dough into a 12 inch rope. With a sharp knife, divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each into a smooth ball. With a rolling pin, roll each ball into a 6 to 7 inch circle. Set aside on a lightly floured countertop. cover with a towel. Let pitas rise about 30 minutes until slightly puffy.
3. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C). Place 2 or 3 pitas on a wire cake rack. Place cake rack directly on oven rack. Bake pitas 4 to 5 minutes until puffed and tops begin to brown. Remove from oven and immediately place pitas in a sealed brown paper bag or cover them with a damp kitchen towel until soft. Once pitas a softened, either cut in half or split top edge for half or whole pitas. They can be stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for 1 or 2 months.

I don't have a bread machine, so I dissolved the yeast and sugar in the warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes to make sure it was active. After it started bubbling I mixed in the oil and salt, then gradually added the flour in to make a dough. Once the dough was made I kneaded it by hand for 8 minutes. After kneading I let the dough sit in an oiled bowl covered with a dish towel in a warm spot (my utility room is always HOT, so I always let yeast breads rise there!) After 45 minutes, I took the dough and formed it into a rope and divided it into 8 pieces. I rolled the pieces into rounds, covered them with warm damp paper towels and let rise for another 30 minutes. When the time was up, I baked as directed (500 degrees for 5 minutes.)

I am really happy with how they turned out. They aren't as puffy as the pictures on allrecipes, but I think the texture and taste was perfect.

For the hummus, I used this basic recipe with some changes of my own, of course! I didn't have tahini (H bought sesame OIL instead of PASTE) so I had to make do with what I had.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained, liquid reserved
• 1 clove garlic, crushed (I used 2 cloves...I love garlic)
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin (I was out of cumin, so I used paprika instead)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (I did 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 sesame oil for the nutty taste)
• I also used the juice of one small lemon
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a blender or food processor combine garbanzo beans, garlic, cumin, salt and olive oil. Blend on low speed, gradually adding reserved bean liquid, until desired consistency is achieved.

The consistency was a little more gritty/grainy than I'm used to with store-bought hummus, which I think tahini would have taken care of. The taste is absolutely fabulous, though, and it went well with the pita and some carrots straight from the field!

Baked Eggplant with Savory Cheese Stuffing

Stuffed Eggplant, originally uploaded by Dayna Riley.

Remember that eggplant from earlier? Yeah, this is what it looked like after cooking. Mm!

I got the recipe from Brinnalee, who got it from Cooking Light

The only change I made to the recipe is that I used store-bought breadcrumbs instead of making my own. I served it alongside brown rice.

Ingredients

2 medium eggplants, each cut in half lengthwise (about 2 pounds)
Cooking spray
1 (1-ounce) slice white bread
1 teaspoon extravirgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
1 1/4 cups finely chopped red bell pepper
1 cup finely chopped seeded plum tomato
1 teaspoon chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°.

Score cut side of each eggplant half by making 4 crosswise cuts. Place the eggplant halves, cut sides down, on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven; cool on pan 10 minutes. Carefully remove pulp, leaving a 1/3-inch-thick shell; reserve eggplant shells. Chop pulp.

Reduce oven temperature to 350°.

Place bread in a food processor; pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure 1/2 cup. Drizzle the breadcrumbs with olive oil, and pulse to combine.

Heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes. Stir in the chopped eggplant, bell pepper, tomato, oregano, and garlic; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and cook 5 minutes or until liquid evaporates, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in cheese, parsley, salt, and black pepper. Stuff each eggplant shell with about 1/2 cup onion mixture; sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture. Place on a baking sheet; bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated and lightly browned.
Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 stuffed eggplant half)

First post! Vegetarian Chili

I've been wanting to start a food blog for awhile, but I had an awful camera that took AWFUL pictures of food. The Husband got me a new camera for my birthday and I can now take decent (I hope!) food pics. I hope everyone enjoys my stuff as much as I enjoy making it!

This vegetarian chili is my go-to ALL THE TIME. I switch the recipe up a lot, depending on what I have available. I never measure for it, so all measurements are an approximation.

Dayna's Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 4-5 cloves minced garlic
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 1 can vegetable stock or chicken stock if you don't mind meat!
  
• 1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 can black beans, drained & rinsed
  
• 1 can great northern beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 cup chopped zucchini
• 2 cups frozen corn or frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots, green beans)
• steak rub spice mix, 2 tbsp (my secret ingredient! My mix contains chili powder, paprika, and dry mustard)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Heat the vegetable oil in a stock pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and saute for 5 minutes. Stir in stock and the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer 20-40 minutes. Serve! Simple and oh-so-good.