We've had plenty of eggplant and peppers in the garden. I am trying to follow a more "back to nature" type of diet and cook with fresh products. I also want to incorporate what I can grow into the mix of what we eat. So since we've been having a lot of peppers and eggplants, I need to use them and we need to eat them. I have grilled the eggplant on the stove, made a couple eggplant lasagna dishes and I have been making lettuce free salads with the peppers I have and the few tomatoes that we are still getting.
The eggplant lasagna turned out quite tasty. I even made double and had my family over to enjoy the new recipe. Basically you replace the noodles with eggplant. I sliced the eggplants thinly and then coated them in egg (eggs from my chickens) then I placed them on parchment paper and baked them in the oven at 400 degrees until slightly brown, flipping them once to brown both sides. After that I layered a tomato sauce and beef mixture with Italian spices, then eggplant layer, then mozzarella cheese, alternating until done. The last layer of cheese on top, baked at 350 degrees for an hour then baked some more until the cheese browned on top and 15 minutes of cooling and it was done.
Everyone except my niece and nephew, one is 10 and the other 12 years old, were impressed. My niece and nephew wanted to know why I did not put noodles in it and they did not like the eggplant. Oh well, can't win them all. All the adults were happy and went for seconds, so that's what counts. Kids are so picky!
As I have mentioned before, I have been making salads now without lettuce. I like lettuce but I really do not miss it in our salads. I make salads with cucumbers, peppers and green onions and if tomatoes are available I add them too. I make an extremely simple recipe using a little bit of lemon juice and a little bit of olive oil. I also add salt and pepper. My husband and I also like dried mint in our salad too. I don't always add dried mint if we have company since not everyone likes it, but when it is just us, I do. Last night I even added an apple to our salad. The secret to making salads like this is to finely chopped everything. I sometimes add raisins, cranberries and/or feta cheese to the salad too. If you plan to add feta, remember to not add much salt, since it is salty on it's own.
I am sure you can add lots of other things also to a salad like this. I get creative and try to find a use to whatever we have a lot of and incorporate it into a salad or another dish I am cooking. Don't worry, I use fresh food items, nothing crazy.
