Eggplants? no problem

After a long day at work (which came after a long holiday), coming back home was the happiest thing to do.
It's almost 6 pm now and I'm not ready to cook anything....let me go to the gym then, I had plans to use gym as an excuse and come back and write about it but unforunately I was way too tired (in other words took a nap/or fainted).

By the time I managed to get myself together the time was nearing 8 o'clock, everyone had eaten already but I was hungry. With no time to defrost or to do anything complicated, the internal voice said: go vegetarian. I look over to inspect the farm my mom bought and all I could see was the shiny eggplants. So eggplants dinner it was.

Eggplants, Aubergin, Bathenjan or Nightshade as some might call it, is originally from the region of Nepal/India/Sri Lanka but is widely used in cooking by the Mediterraneans, Arabs & Asians. I've never tried it in its raw form (and never hear of a dish usig raw eggplants), and I'm not willing to try it raw.

Quickly I run to find "Al Waleema" (The Feast) Book because I remember it had a whole eggplants chapter & luckily there were two dishes I can make in such short time.

The first dish was a basic chickpeas & eggplans fatta. Very easy to make, deep fry eggplant (chopped into cubes). Then, heat the pita bread pieces in the oven until they turn gold and crunchy. The dressing was a mixtue of yougurt, buttermilk, garlic powder and salt & pepper. Now, assemble. In a deep dish put the cooked eggplants, then the drained (canned) chickpeas, bread and top with the dressing & that's it!



I used Sumac to garnish

 The second dish was even easier, eggpant & tomatoe casserole. Slice the eggplants and fry them lightly, place half the amount into the bottom of the casserole, the put tomatoe slices and chopped basil, top with the remaining eggplants & you could put fresh mozzarella cheese (I used a lot since I can't get enought cheese). All it took was 20 minutes in the oven and dinner was ready.

and when sliced



you could peel the eggpants if you like

So what do we learn from this?

1. Dinner can be made in 30 minutes
2. Vegiterian food is really good
3. These are recipes we would norally ignore in cook books, as we always focus on meat/chicken or desserts and never notice the small easy dishes
4. Preplan what you'll be cooking on working days

The day was long, but I'm happy that I made something.

Day 2 was all veggies,what will Day 3 be?