Mother-in-law pleaseing Eggplant Lasagna

Keith's mom came over for dinner today. Eggplant and lasagna are some of her favorite foods so I combined the two and whipped this up!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium italian eggplant sliced 1/2" thick
• 1 box of no boil lasagna noodles
• 1 can of crushed tomato (I use Tottorosa)
• 6 oz of ricotta cheese with an egg mixed it
• some shredded mozzerella
• 1 small onion sliced thinly
• olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder

1. Place all your sliced eggplant and onion on a large baking tray with a generous drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until cooked and tender. A little brown is good but not black. If you do over bake, just leave out the black burned pieces.
2. In a 9x7 lasagna pan, layer your ingredients together. This is how I did it: baking tray, crushed tomato, noodles, crushed tomato, ricotta cheese, eggplant/onion, shredded cheese, noodle and repeat.
3. I made it ahead of time and put it in the fridge. The following day, just bake it in the oven at 350 for 1 hour. Serve with warm bread.

I don't add a lot of mozzarella because it can overpowering and I'm lactose intolerant anyhow. If there is too much, it doesn't seem to bake all melty the way I want it to either. I did not make tomato sauce. I just used the crushed tomato from the can as is because the eggplant had plenty of seasoning in it. Although it involved a little extra prep work, it was still an easy dish that you can put together and just throw in the oven and then get ready for your guests.

How do you like your eggplant?

Weekend Recap - Visiting Dennis in NYC

We went to visit my brother this weekend in NYC and stay over at his new apartment. It was so much fun just to relax and hang out in the city before classes started. (Sorry, no pictures. I left my memory stick at home.) NJ Transit offered FREE rides to students all week, so it was perfect.

On Friday night, we went to Dallas BBQ in Chelsea. Keith is the BBQ fan, not me, but I have to admit it was really good and affordable. The portions are really large and most entrees were $16.99. We ordered the Full Wings as an appetizer that were really good. Between the 3 of us, we had ribs, steak, chicken, crab cakes, and a filet of fried catfish. Everything was really good. The crab cakes were full of crab, but I think I would've rather gone with the shrimp. The fried catfish was good, but not nearly as good as the fried catfish from Ms Tootsie's in Philadelphia. Everything at Ms. Tootsie's is fantastic!!!

The next day, we walked around and browsed all the shops near Grand Central Station and Union Square. Since we took the train in, it was so relaxing not to be bounded by our car. I wanted to check out the "chandelier" again at Olivier's & Co. It wasn't as impressive as when I first saw it years ago. I am making a note of it because someday, I'd like a scaled down version of the olive oil chandelier that Emeril has on his show. Maybe I can make one myself if I can't buy it. (You can see it in the window here on the right hand side)

We went down to Union Square where they have the open green market every Saturday. I went to visit Cherry Lane Farms; a friend of a friend owns the farm. I bought some of these Fairytale eggplant. Aren't they cute? We're going to skewer them and grill them. Now I am going to want to grow them next summer.

Then we had to stop at Paper Presentation, so I could pick up some stuff for our Christmas cards this year. The store has been "revamped" since I last visited. There were a lot more choices in scrapbooking embellishments, ribbon, and a wedding invitation consulting area upstairs. I am in love with their new mini tags. I was thinking of things I could make with them just so I could find a reason to buy them. But alas, we are on a budget and have to avoid buying "extras".

After that, we checked out a sleeper sofa at Jennifer Convertables that my brother wants for his apartment. It's crazy how small apartments are in NYC. We browsed all the shops around there for decorating ideas. He's going for a contemporary cream with black and red accent look. Sister to the rescue!

We went to Fishs Eddy and I gasped so loudly that I scared the lady next to me when I found these! Ceramic labels 6/$2.00 for my garden. I am going to run either a wire or ribbon through it and tag all my flowers and veggies! I am so excited about this.

I love all things Alice in Wonderland! We were already on our way out of Fishs Eddy when I spotted the collection. These are definitely going on my Christmas wish list!

Then I did a little Back to School shopping and by that time we were hungry again. My brother was in the mood for Minado (AKA To dai) in Koreantown, so we went there. We walked in and ROLLED out since we ate so much. Yummm We went back to my bro's apartment, watched MadTV and fell asleep. Overall, it was a VERY good weekend and it wasn't even over yet.

Sunday morning, we took the train back home. Keith had to go to work and I had the itch to clean. Every once in a while I get the itch to decorate or take on a new project. I rearranged the living room furniture to give it a "new" feel. The living room was too spread out before and we wanted it to be a little cozier to encourage newlywed affection! It's not my ideal living room arrangement (I hate things caddy corner), but for just 2 people, I think it works. Our living room has no solid walls (ie. window or opening in every wall), so that makes things really tricky. After 2 hours of playing doll house, vacuuming 10 times and dropping the tv on my legs OUCH! This is what I came up with.

Yes, Keith is playing video games and wouldn't move out of the way for my picture.

I moved the kitchen hutch/cabinet thingy out to the living room. The wood matches the coffee table and actually completed the look of the living room. It balances the room out so that the couches don't seem to be sticking out in midair.

The enclosed porch out front.

Our jade plant is doing much better thank goodness! Apparantly, it's telling of your financial situation. Let's just say that in the summer, it was shriveling up and thin. Now it's plumping back up. I hope that's good sign!

Time to empty out the fridge! I made soup with ground sausage, peppers, leeks, tomatoes, arugula, parsley, garlic and orzo. It was DEEEEELICIOUS!!! Everything but the sausage and leeks were from my garden.

Then at night, I just worked on our scrapbook some more and started my wedding shadow box. I am also working on framing 8x10's of all the places Keith and I have visited over the years. We were thinking of hanging them along the wall going up the stairs and progressing chronologically up the stairs. Unfortunately, the pictures of France and Italy are low resolution since we took those over 4 years ago. This week, I start classes so I'll be pretty busy until Christmas. I hope I can get to the rest of the gardening and fall decorating by this weekend.

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo

You can never go wrong with the food channel! Barefoot Contessa, one of my favorite shows made roasted shrimp and orzo pasta that looked delicious that I had to try it this week. You can find the recipe here. This is one of those dishes that you can expand for a larger dinner party. It tasted so good that I am going to make it for my scrapbooking party.

The combination of the cucumber, feta, dill and shrimp just tasted so light and delicious!

You must try this! It was easy to make too!

I also like this Roasted Eggplant Spread with Pita. I just happen to have a TON of egggplant and peppers from my garden, so I tested this recipe out. I added both green and yellow bell peppers. Yellow ones are sweet. Green ones can taste bitter when roasted. I added tons of smashed garlic. We love garlic and it smelled so good in the house when it was roasting! Crazy thing, my bell peppers cross polinated with the chilli peppers and my bell peppers are now spicey!

Dice everything and drizzle with olive oil, course salt and pepper.

Roast it for 45 mins. It took me about an hour. Stir it once half way through.

When they are fully cooked, let it cool and place in a blender. Add lemon juice and tahini.

Because of the lighting in my kitchen, this looks like disgusting slop, but trust me it was really good. I think that's why it's a good idea to add Paprika to this because it will give it a red color so it looks more like a dip rather than vomit.

This was kinda a lot of work with the baking and blending. I wouldn't make it for just anybody. I have alot of organic and veggie only eating friends who did appreciate this. This isn't something you make for a Sunday football get together. Overall, very tasty, very filling, very healthy and worth the time.

Garden update - August 25th, 2007

It's been a while since I have done an update on the garden. I stayed out of the garden to avoid getting anymore unsightly misquito bites before the wedding and the weeds just took over. It worked out well that we were home for a week after the wedding before going away on our minimoon. It gave me a chance to clean up the house before going away. I consolidated my wedding piles into one giant wedding pile and put it in my office (spare bedroom) to hide it. I don't know how I am going to get rid of everything.

Without further ado, here are some wedding gifts from my garden. The newest thing was I have green bell peppers in my garden. I wonder if peppers are meant to be late in the season. We seasoned them with oo, s&p, and grilled them. They are meant to be eaten while they are small (like the size of an apple). They taste really sweet when small.

I also have tons of eggplant. They too are picked while they are still "small". Most people are under the impression that veggies are supposed to look like those overgrown, tasteless masses you see in the supermarket. The smaller, the less seeds as well. We also grilled these and they were perfect. Nice and fleshy, no seeds.

Right away, I recognized that the cantelope was ready to be picked and eaten! Previously, they were still too "raw" to eat and tasted like a cucumber. You know they are ripe when they are really orange in color and you can see that color through the skin. They wrip right off the vine and are slightly tender to the touch. They should be eaten soon after you pick it. They were so juicy and sweet! I have lots more too!

And now my PRIDE AND JOY! As we were weeding and mowing the lawn, we saw that one watermelon was eaten by an animal. Looking at the flesh on the inside, we could tell that all the watermelons must be ripe! I don't feel bad that it got eaten because it's hard to tell when a watermelon is really ripe. So that clears me of the guilt of having to sacrifice one as I did with the cantelope to see when they are ripe.

Blogging about the garden has really come in handy because now I can look back to see how many weeks it took the watermelon. We tapped on it and it's very "hollow" sounding and the sound "bounces back". That's how you know it's ripe and juicy. We had a total of 6 significant watermelons. We ate 2, gave 2 away, 1 eaten by the animal and we still have 1 more in the garden. They taste just like a watermelon! We were really shocked that they grew so we were really suprised when we had a watermelon good enough to eat!

Then I have tons of tomatoes, chilli peppers and pirella leaves. I can't give them away fast enough! Everyday, there's 40 more tomatoes to be picked! The okra stopped for a little while and now there's all new growth and more okra! I have had 4 more butternut squash.

My LOVE! A hot pink Dahlia! Dahlias are in season now. It was the perfect shade of pink too! I planted these bulbs in the early spring. I purchased the bulbs from Home Depot. Bulbs should all be 50% off now in stores. I think I am going to stock up on some for next spring/summer. You shouldn't buy seeds or bulbs over a year old (check the expiration date on them), but I bought these last Fall which is late in the season and yet they still grew (along with my peonies). The bulbs get a chance to rest over the winter. Perennials are worth the investment.

Next year, I am not going to replant any veggies. I had way too many this year and whatever grows back (from the fruit that dropped to the ground) will be enough for two people to eat. Intentionally, I sacrificed some eggplant and threw them into the ground for next year.

Instead I am going to work on landscaping the area around the house, deck and backyard next year. I am going to line the area closest to the house with tall, colored grasses. I have seen a lot of grasses in the parks in Philly that are very hearty. They are low maintenance and grow back each year. I am going to pick them from the park, learn the name and plant them in my yard.

We have watermelons and cantelope!

I have been avoiding the garden to avoid anymore irritating mosquito bites before the wedding. I water the garden very quickly in the evening and dodge back into the house. Today, Keith went to harvest "some" lettuce for lunch when he saw a CANTELOPE!



When he told me, I went flying out the door with my camera! I was in disbelief. I was always told how difficult it was to grow fruit, so I had no expectations of ever getting any.


Then I looked around to see if there were any more fruit and I found a tiny WATERMELON! Next to it, hidden under a large leaf was ANOTHER cantelope!!!



Keith came outside with me and spotted a bunch more! We were so excited!


This one was really cute and round.


Here was the biggest one hidden under my lettuce!!!


Keith holding the lettuce and leaves open while I snap pics.


And another!


And another little cantelope.


My eggplant is getting there.


Then we got a shocking surprise. As we were digging through searching for more watermelons, we saw something furry and still as a board. Keith thought it was dead and then suddenly this rabbit came running away. He was taking shade under the lettuce and by the size of him/her, it seems my lettuce must be very yummy.

I have an eggplant!

It's little, but it's an eggplant.


Okra Flower


My tomatoes are beginning to ripen.


More gourds


It's tall.


Another cucumber.