Baba Ghanoush

Baba ghanoush is an Arabic dip made from eggplant that I'm thinking most of us have had by now. Don't worry if you can't pronounce it. Just make it, and eat it.



I've purchased baba ghanoush in a can that was, believe it or not, fairly decent. But it is so inexpensive to make, like, a metric ton of it. Like dude: a TON. Anyway, I froze several containers of it for later. I'll let you know how that goes.

Ingredients:

4 eggplants
olive oil
lemon juice
3 or 4 garlic cloves
beans or tofu
salt and pepper

Here's how you do it: I use a simple 4/40/400 rule: put four eggplants on a cookie sheet with foil for 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Turn them over once halfway through cooking. Let them cool. Then peel the skin off and put the "meat" into a food processor with three or four cloves of garlic (yes, this plan of mine will yield a strong garlic flavor. If you want less, use less, but honestly just thinking about that makes me a little sad). Use salt (plenty, keep tasting) and pepper and a little something to thicken the mix: I use either a rinsed can of white beans, chickpeas, or about 3/4 cup of tofu (whatever you have). Then I add lemon juice, and I use the concentrated stuff if I don't have fresh ones on hand.

Blend it all up, and while it is whirring, drizzle in about a quarter cup of olive oil. Serve it with chips or pita, and drizzle it with more olive oil and some paprika. So, so good, and good for you (unless you have a date or a job interview). My friend Lynn recently made me aware of "sale produce" at our local Italian grocery, where they sell produce in big bundles that has only a day or two left. So I made this quadruple batch for about $1.29. What a thrill!

Pizza Stone and Pizza on the Grill

Lookie my new toys!



I've been messing with this all summer. I bought a pizza peel (the big paddle), and a large rectangular pizza stone on Amazon.com. I went by the ones with a high rating. I have been buying the whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's, and I've had a lot of success with that. But you could make your own. I tried Pillsbury refrigerated dough on the stone once, and it scorched on the bottom and was raw on the top. I had to throw it out. But at a lower temperature, it might have worked.

I started this because I've never had a crispy bottom crust in the oven, ever. Sure, Boboli work, but I wanted real pizza: chewy inside, floury on top, and crunchy on the bottom. Well, turns out you need a stone. And it could not be easier.

You build the pizza on the paddle, and you're supposed to use corn meal. Well, I've used Italian breadcrumb, and that seems to work okay. The purpose of this is just ball-bearings... You know, to move the dough off of the peel easily. The stone gets pre-heated on the propane grill (or in your oven). Mine gets up to just over 400 degrees (medium-high works pretty well). Also, you MUST use room temperature dough. Otherwise, it's like trying to roll a rubber band. Also, it won't puff up while cooking.



I use marinara out of a jar, but I've found it can be watery. You can mix it with tomato paste and heat it, or barbecue sauce. Or, just touch a paper towel corner to the watery parts when it comes out, and the water will wick up into the towel.



I've made all kinds of pizzas this summer, but all a little bit healthy. Turkey sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella... Take my advice and use the shrink-wrapped cheese, not the kind in water. Too much water on your pie. And I dunno about you, but I've never sat on Santa's lap and asked for a watery pie.



After some trial and error (and a lot of blackened dough), turns out these babies cook in about four minutes! (Lets see Domino's beat that). But you want to burn it just a LITTLE bit... This is supposed to simulate the coal or wood-burning pizzeria oven, after all!



I also bought a honkin' pizza blade to cut the pizza with, shaped kind of like a saber and a mezza luna combined (they have them at Bed, Bath and Beyond). Your little wheel just isn't ready for this kind of crunch.

Swiss Pita Burger

If you put spinach on something, it's "florentine," and if you put mushrooms on a dish, it's "swiss." Those are the rules, I don't make them. (This burger isn't so much of an alternative burger, but I did put it on pita bread. So there's your alternative.)



I sautéed and seasoned the mushrooms in the pan that I cooked the burgers in. I put the 'shrooms on the burgers, melted the swiss on top, and added Country Bob's steak sauce. If you're not familiar with Bob's, you should get there. Like Tracy Morgan says, "I'm down" with Bob's "like four flat tires." If you put Bob's on a bank vault, I think I'd gnaw through the steel door. This sauce would make me eat my mother's pork chops.

I liked the whole-wheat pitas on these, because the bread was basically a vehicle for what was between it: the meat, cheese, mushrooms, and the Bob's. In fact, with those toppings, you could easily use turkey meat or a veggie patty, and it would still taste good. (Not as good, but that's just my opinion).

Lamb and Feta Burger

Did I say I was doing these burger posts beginning July 4th? My, how time flies! Well, it might take me until next summer, but I'll get the rest of these alternative burgers up. I'M BUSY. In fact, the dedicated reader will spot the backdrop in this next picture: the kitchen I moved out of in January of 2008. But I remember how good these burgers were!



This ground lamb burger is based on a recipe I have printed in Bob Sloan's wonderful book, "Great Burgers." I based it on his "Lamb and Feta Burger with Cumin-Yogurt Dressing." I'd reprint it here for you, but A) I'm not sure I have permission to do that, and B) I didn't really follow it closely anyway. I found ground lamb at Joe Caputo's (but any real butcher is likely to have it, just probably not "the Jewel's," as Dad would say). I seasoned it simply, added a packet of crumbled feta, some toasted pignolis, and dried Italian seasoning. The yogurt dressing was greek yogurt with cumin and lime juice, and I sautéed the spinach with some simple seasoning, and finished it with some red wine vinegar at the end. And I didn't measure anything.



I served them on pitas as Bob recommended. They were a bit rich (the lamb has a rich flavor), but nice for a new option.

Turkey Marinara Burger

What better time to post a run of burgers than the week of July 4th? Most of these are "alternative burgers," since I thought perhaps this might be the only time of the year when we all might be a little burnt out on the regular kind. In the last week, I've seen a thick, juicy looking, Grade A veggie burger at not only J. Alexander's steak house, but Wrigley Field as well. It's a beautiful time to be alive, friends.



I'm starting things off with something simple (it IS a holiday, and I've had a long day of rainy ball games, dinners out, baby baths and two Old Styles, though not all concurrently). This is a ground turkey patty, having seasoned the meat with Italian seasoning and garlic, salt and pepper. I topped it with melted mozzarella, marinara, and put it on a toasted, buttered roll. I also had some leftover pesto, and I shmeared that on the bottom part of the roll, though you don't necessarily need that part. Deliziosamente sciatto! Which means, "deliciously sloppy." I think.

Beata's Hoot Owl Cutlets

These are bad. BA-A-A-AA-D. But they are so good, you know? (I sound like a guy in a leather beret from a 1980 cop movie explaining to the uptight lead, "Naw, man. Bad means GOOD.") These are definitely in that "meat candy" category: sweet and savory, and fried and cheesy. In short, the perfect food.



Remember the meat-a-riffic baby shower that I went to for my friend Beata? Well, here is yet another entry on something fun she had there. She made these breaded cutlets from pork, but I used chicken (pounded out). I asked her how she got such a great breaded crust, and she said she double-coated them in Italian breadcrumb. So that's flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumb, then egg again, then breadcrumb. Then she fried them, and put pineapple slices on top, and American cheese and put them under the broiler for a minute or two. Is she brilliant, or what?

She didn't call them "hoot owls," but that's what they looked like to me. (Now you know what you're bringing to your next Harry Potter party.)



I'm not usually an American cheese fan, but it just seemed right on these. They have that feel of a recipe you'd get from a 1950s cookbook, called "Luau Chicken" or "Hula Pork," where a ring of canned pineapple counts as an exotic ingredient from the south Pacific. And you just need American cheese for that.

These take a TON of breadcrumb, and I can only eat about half of one at a sitting. Which is probably advisable, since I don't want to know how much fat is in one of these. I'm calling it special occasion food, when you're "feelin' kinda cutlet." Or maybe when one of the kids gets glasses, and needs a little giggle!

Slow Cooker Spicy Chicken and Rice

Okay, my posts have gotten a bit shorter. But there's a good reason for that. My time has gotten shorter, too! And I figure if my time is shorter, then other people are probably short on time, too. Since, you know, I only have the one kid, and/or I don't work full time. So hopefully other people will be interested in dinners that are as fast as I'd like them to be. And if not, have you read dooce.com lately?



Oh, and sorry about the lousy picture. Again: time crunch.

First you drop four to six chicken breasts into the slow cooker. Or hell, just use two, I don't care. Sometimes you get through those giant Costco packages of chicken and all you have are two left over. Or maybe you just bought two, and that's a little bit sad and lonely for you, but I'm not here to make you feel worse. (But really, you should make more and plan for leftovers. I'm not your mother but I'm just sayin'.) I was about to add "then lightly season the chicken," but who am I kidding? I didn't do that.

Then you drop a can or two of cream of mushroom (or cream of anything) soup on top. Also add wild or brown rice, and enough liquid to cook the rice (I like to use chicken broth). Cook it for six hours or so, and the chicken will break apart easily with two forks, so you can s-to-the-hred it. Then add a liberal amount of hot sauce (I like Red Hot), and some salsa, and stir it again.

This can be eaten with a salad or veggie on the side, but it's also really good inside tortillas with taco fixings.



The best part about this dinner is this: not only did you barely cook today, but you don't have to cook tomorrow, either!