Thai Eggplant Green Curry Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Thai Basil Ice cream

Here it finally is: my slightly belated post about my dessert for Dirt Candy’s 2nd birthday at the end of October. I already detailed how this unique opportunity came about so I’ll save this space for how I came up with the concept for the chosen dessert and, following that, an at-home version of the recipe that I shared with Amanda and staff.

As I previously mentioned, Amanda had asked me at the very end of August to come up with a vegetable-based dessert, thereby giving me nearly six weeks to come up with a concept, test, and finalize it before sending her my recipe the last week of October. Because it was still late summer, my head was wrapped around berries and stone fruit and corn but I quickly realized that those items weren’t really in season in late October (even though they could certainly be sourced at that time) and so I decided against them. Within a week, I was fully certain that I wanted to use one of the namesakes of this blog: eggplant.

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

One of my early memories of helping out my mom in the kitchen is making eggplant parmesan once a month on Sunday evenings. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to help in the kitchen. When I was really little, I was allowed to stir things (initially ones that weren’t on the stove, but as I got older, the stove was no longer off-limits) and I beat eggs on Sunday mornings for omelettes and stirred in seasonings, but I think that this dish was one of the first things with which she really let me get my hands dirty – both literally and figuratively. My mom would slice up the eggplant and prepare the bowl of dredging liquid (she used a thin batter made of chickpea flour and water), and she did all the frying. But I was completely in charge of everything else.

I loved dipping my hands (oh, and the eggplant slices, too) into the dredging solution and then coating them in breadcrumbs. My hands would always end up a huge, sticky, crumby mess after completing a few slices, but some vigorous scraping and washing was all I needed to get back to next batch. I always laid out the finished slices on a few plates so that my mom could get them into the hot oil and not have to wait too long between batches. While she was frying the slices, I made sure to have paper towel-lined plates ready for her on which the eggplant could drain. I always used to sneak a few slices – fried eggplant is so good, and you all know how I feel about eggplant, so how could I resist?

South Indian Baby Eggplant Curry

Update (January 2011): Upon retiring his long-running Minimalist column, Mark Bittman selected his top 25 recipes and this was one of them.

Update (April 2008): Mark Bittman adapted this recipe and featured it in his Minimalist column in the New York Times.

I don’t think I need to reiterate my love for eggplant. My mom has been making this dish for many years, but I never bothered to learn how to make it.

When I was home this past weekend, I noticed some small eggplants in the fridge and my mom told me to take them with me and make this curry with them. I had never made it before, but she assured me it was incredibly easy to make. She was right – the whole thing took under 20 minutes to make, there was minimal cleanup (courtesy of microwave cooking), and the best part is that it tasted exactly like my mom’s version of it.

Eggplant, Olive, and Gruyere Pressed Sandwiches

This sandwich came about not through creativity, but rather because of the combination of my utter laziness and a dearth of food in my fridge. The following allowed me to pull this one off:

· I made two loaves of rustic French bread the other night; one was plain and the other was loaded with rosemary and nicoise and kalamata olives.

· With the exception of last weekend, the weather in Baltimore has been downright summery, so my plants are still giving me food. So I have tons of peppers and a few eggplants.

· I always have good cheese in my fridge. Always.

Pizza Melanzana

OK, back to the savories. And, of course, it has to feature my favorite, eggplant, and its summertime partner in crime, the cherry tomato.

Roasted Eggplant and Tomatoes with Penne

I don’t think I need to reiterate that eggplant is my favorite vegetable. As I previously mentioned, there are so many lovely ones available at the market this time of year, and I always buy lots of them. Of course, there’s also a plethora of tomatoes at the market; I end up buying a few pints of different cherry tomatoes in addition to heirlooms and romas. Of course, at this point, I find myself with too many tomatoes and eggplants (amongst other vegetables) on my hands. Although I love being in the kitchen, trying to use up all this produce sometimes tires me out, which is why roasting has become my preferred method of dealing with much of my summer produce. Not only is it incredibly easy, but I find that it really brings out the flavor of the vegetables.

Eggplant and Lentil Stew

Of course my first recipe on here has to feature eggplants! Eggplants have always been one of my favorite vegetables, and I've been buying lots of lovely heirlooms at the market this summer. I have found them to be more tender and less bitter than the traditional purple-skinned variety.