Everyday Systems

There's a company here that delivers each week fresh fruit/veg from local farms. Yesterday was my first bin. Amongst all the cool fruits and veggies was an eggplant. I'd never had eggplant before. And since my book has it listed as a food that should be eaten within 2-3 days of picking, that was the first veg I cooked...this evening.

With it we had some canned tuna with ground up sunflower seeds, seasoning, and lime juice (lemon would have tasted better I think), made as a tuna patty, on a bed of fresh lettuce.

My book said that the eggplant tastes good with tomatoes and olives. My daughter are just learning to accept olives in our food once in a while, so I chopped up some olives (jarred) and mixed it with some chopped up tomatoes. Then kinda made a sauce out of it. Really good, imo. And then added to the eggplant after the eggplant was cooked according to the directions.

As it turns out, eggplant doesn't really have a taste, so we got a good taste of the tomato&olive sauce. Unfortunately, most of the 'tastes' that I like are really textures. And eggplant's sponginess just...was gross...to me and my daughter.

But that was like...half our plate!!!! And a small plate at that.

The tuna patties were pretty good. We're still trying to get used to the taste of fish though, and prefer to kind of hide the taste with other vegetables...of which there now weren't any.

So, all my daughter and I got this evening was 1 1/2 patties of tuna on a wee bit of lettuce. It's an N day..so no seconds nor snacks allowed. *sigh* Needless to say we are still hungry and are anxiously awaiting the evening mini-meal. Which is 2 1/2 hours from now.

I'd have to say that this is one type of situation where I need some kind of acceptable backup. Any ideas?



(note: i've already informed the company not to include eggplant in future bins of ours. But it's possible that we'll come across a similar situation where we try something new and don't like it.)

I wouldn't give up on the eggplant -- yet. I don't know how you cooked it, but there are some preparations that I don't like at all and others I LOVE.

If you make something that you don't like and don't eat -- refilling your plate with something else isn't seconds or snacks. It's filling your plate.

You should be able to find a lot of good eggplant recipes in Italian or Vegetarian cookbooks (or websites). I know I used to have a recipe where I'd split one in half (horizontally) score it and put some olive oil on top and then bake it till done. I liked that! Also you can cut it up and steam it and add cheese or something when it's done (maybe 10 minutes). Unfortunately I don't cook so much since I work at night now, but I remember those two, which were easy.

Good luck

Roast the eggplant, or salt it for 1/2 an hour to make it less bitter.

Great in Turkish and Middle Eastern recipies.

Though, when I was a kid, I just hated it...

betty

I just stumbled across this in the New York Times:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/heal ... index.html

The book I had suggested slicing the eggplant into 1/2"-1" slices, brushing lemon juice on the slices to prevent browning, and then spread course salt over them to help reduce the bitterness. Leaving the salt on for an hour. Then rinse the salt off. (Alternatively letting the slices soak in cold water for 10-15 min.)

Whether this helped or not, I just know that there was no bitterness to the eggplant.

The book then suggested that the best way to keep most the nutrients of the eggplant is to saute it, using a broth (preferably unsalted) instead of oil. I used a beef broth (all i had was beef or chicken) that has only 5 mg of sodium in it. The eggplant was sauted for 4 minutes, then flipped over and done for another 3 minutes.

The book also suggested that a mediterranean type dressing goes well on it. Also tomatoes and olives. So I added those to it.

The taste of the sauces actually were pretty good.

It was just the spongy texture of it.
But then, I used to have issues with cooked zucchini because of it's texture. And if a cucumber has developed a certain amount of sponginess to it, then I won't eat it, either.

A few years from now I may try eggplant again.
But for now, I'll avoid it. I'm just learning how to cook, and include new foods into our eating. I'm not going to force myself to try to figure out eggplant right now, too many other things to learn and figure out. Stuff I actually like, etc.
So, maybe in a year I'll try it again, and maybe in a couple of years we'll have it a couple of times or so. But for now, it's just not worth it to me, heh.

But thank you all for the comments and suggestions regarding the eggplant. All printed off and added to the folder.

**

As for the missed half of the meal, I feel kinda stupid that I didn't regard it as wones suggested...as putting something else on the plate wouldn't have been seconds, but filling the plate. I think that the image I had in my head was that I was getting up and putting more food on the plate, not that I was just replacing the food that was on the plate.

I think I'll set aside some frozen veggies or premade bag of rice as food that would be used if I run into this problem again. This way I won't have to try to make decisions about what to eat, again, lol.

Thank you wones for that different view on it (than what I had).

That doesn't sound like a very traditional way of cooking eggplant -- kind of a "healthy" version. I would have cooked it in olive oil.

I've found that a lot of "healthy" ways of cooking things are a HUGE compromise when it comes to taste and texture. In fact, I did a purge of "healthy" cookbooks and recipes a year or so ago. I'm enjoying food a lot more now.

Eggplant is a very traditional Mediterranean food, so using tomatoes and olives with it (along with the Mediterranean seasoning) sounds great.

As the 'new foods' issue seems to have been resolved, I simply say 'moussaka'!

And 'aubergine'.

Baba Gannouj -- aka Roasted Eggplant Dip. Divine!

anndelise,

I know you are done with eggplant, but my favorite way to make it is misto it with my Extra virgin unfiltered olive oil and salt and pepper one side then put it on the grill on the top of the oven, cook 5 - 4 minutes each side ... you end up with nice grill marks and delicious eggplant ... if the texture is spongy it probably hasn't been cooked properly!

So, all my daughter and I got this evening was 1 1/2 patties of tuna on a wee bit of lettuce.

Honeslty, that doesn't sound like a very satisfying meal, as you go along you will get an idea of how much food you need to last meal I wouldn't worry about it too much!

Blueskighs

blueskighs wrote:

So, all my daughter and I got this evening was 1 1/2 patties of tuna on a wee bit of lettuce.

Honeslty, that doesn't sound like a very satisfying meal, as you go along you will get an idea of how much food you need to last meal I wouldn't worry about it too much!

Had the eggplant been ok, then most of the meal would actually have been the eggplant. Most of our meals are vegetables, and only about 1 serving of meat. 1 1/2 servings of only protein, at most. (richard gets a little more than my daughter and i...and she gets a little more than me since she's young, growing, and active in school p.e.)

We've found that if we chew well, no tv/music/computer/etc, then sometimes we don't feel as if we can eat more than half the plate (at a 3/4 full plate). We also each eat bigger lunches than our dinner is. So it's not like we're cutting off more calories than we need.

Each of our meals (including the minimeal) are about 4 1/2 hours apart (that's just how it worked out with school/work breakfast/lunch breaks, off school/work, bedtime, etc). So we need more energy in morning and afternoon than dinner and minimeal (which is a serving of fruit, sometimes with protein added in).

But yeah, definitely without that eggplant, it was NOT satisfying at all, lol.
We had our minimeal early that evening, lol.

Eggplant is just one of those foods that is not meant to be eaten raw, or even close to it, much like winter squashes, even though they are very different. It should not be spongey! With water sauteeing, the water will not heat to the same degree as oil, so foods must be cooked longer. But, really, go ahead and use the olive oil. Just a bit makes a difference. Cooked eggplant should be more like a cooked tomato-pretty mushy. And it's meant more as a base that you add flavor to, almost like a soup stock. Or, sliced very thinly, sprayed with oil, and sprinkled lightly with salt and oregano, it makes wonderful chips!

you can use the eggplant for a sustitute for noodles in a lasagna, or look for recipes for eggplant parmesian. I usually dip the eggplant slices in egg, dip in a favorite breading and bake, then top with a spegetti or pizza sauce.

oolala53 wrote:Eggplant is just one of those foods that is not meant to be eaten

Couldn't help but agree with this part of your post

May you all find ways to eat it that you like!

Merry

For a while whenever I tried to cook eggplant at home it would turn out nasty. But once I learned how to prepare it correctly it was delicious--the spongy texture disappeared and instead it was soft and creamy.

Like some of the others said, you should salt your eggplant for about 30 minutes to remove some of the moisture. I usually brush the excess salt and water off with paper towels afterwards. Also, I am pretty convinced that eggplant needs to be cooked with a generous amount of oil (I like to think its OK because eggplant itself is so low in calories, so a little extra oil won't hurt.) The oil keeps it from drying out too much and getting that gross leathery, chewy texture.

Also, I second the notion of checking out some more traditional Mediterranean eggplant recipes rather than going for healthy/diet eggplant recipes. Most foods from traditional diets are inherently healthy, as they are not chemically processed. I think a big component of NoS is to really enjoy and savor those three meals that you eat each day--I definitely interpreted that message by focusing less on "health" or "diet" foods and simply focusing on real, satisfying food. In my case, while I would have been afraid to put some oil on my eggplant before, now I've become alright with it.

Eggplant parmesan is probably one of my top 10 fave foods
But I order it from the pizza place.
LOL

re: eggplant

I think these are rather temperamental vegetables that can very easily go spongey and lose their taste/texture. I've rarely found good ones here in the UK, if you're in a cool climate, this may be part of the problem.

I used to get a weekly box from a local organic farm and once got eggplants (or aubergines as we call them!) in October after a spell of particularly cold damp weather, while they looked fine on the outside they were spongey inside with brown bits and when cooked turned into a spongey, bland mass.

The only time I've had good, flavourful aubergines was in Greece and Turkey (picked same day).

So I guess my advice is to avoid them at cold times of the year, or if they're more than a few days old. Courgette (Zukini) can be substuted in eggplant recipes though quite well IMO, and they tend to last longer after picking (weeks even if stored correctly) they also fare better with less cooking if you don't mind them with a bit of bite.

Good luck with trying new things! At the moment I really like Pak Choi, there seems to be a lot of that about lately! When steamed it resembles spinach in taste and is nice with lemon juice.

How funny, I just had eggplant tonight. I love it, but then again I'll pretty much eat anything.

Good for you for trying something new! Maybe the eggplant didn't work out so hot, but next time you may find something you love.

I don't think you should count a refill as seconds if you don't eat the firsts.