Grilled Eggplant Caprese

August’s ingredients for the Improv Cooking Challenge are Tomatoes & Herbs. Which is unfortunate for my garden, ‘cause those items  burnt  were ruined  expired at the end of June with our extreme heat! (Actually, I do have one basil plant left, so I used that with tomatoes from the market…)
First off, I made what would be kind of a pesto salt. I chopped (and chopped and chopped and chopped…)  a cup (lightly packed) of basil leaves, 5 cloves of garlic, and half a cup of kosher salt. The mixture was spread in a baking pan and spent the day  at the spa  dehydrating under the oven light. The finished salt was then bottled to await its ultimate purpose. (BTW -- that stuff is awesome on olive-oil-popped popcorn!)
The morning of “recipe day” I put together the drizzle for the salad. Into the pitcher of my Blendtec went 1 tablespoon red wine, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons honey, a clove of garlic, 2 cups (kinda sorta packed) fresh basil leaves (weighed about 2 oz.) and a couple grinds each of Himalayan salt & black pepper (to taste). When that became all nice & relatively smooth, 1/3 cup of olive oil was trickled in to blend up a sweet basil vinaigrette. Sooooooo tasty -- mmmmmmm!
I sliced an eggplant and brushed both sides of each slice with olive oil. Then I lightly sprinkled on some of that pesto herb salt. Those pretty little rounds got grilled until they had some lovely stripes criss-crossing their surface. I put them in a covered dish to chill until the ultimate assembly before dinner.
I’ve had my share of good caprese salads at restaurants (I’ve had at least one not quite so good caprese…) But let me tell you -- the addition of those grilled eggplant slices sends this salad into a whole different stratosphere!
The subtle flavor just melds so deliciously with the tomato and fresh mozzarella slices.
…and the drizzle -- ah, that sweet basil drizzle…
It was good to the last, ummmmm, drip… (you probably can’t tell I spooned some more on, right?)

Check out what my friends created with tomatoes & herbs:

An InLinkz Link-up

…when life hands you garbage,

make compost!

My grapevine knows that the best nutrients sometimes come from the nastiest junk...

she stands

pumpkin molasses cookies

My daddy brought over some plants for my garden that he had sprouted this spring. I thought I planted a couple zucchini, a couple watermelon & a couple cucumber plants. 

Well, what grew the fastest (kinda took over both raised beds with its foot-diameter leaves...) turned out to be a pumpkin vine.

So far I've seeded  2 of them (the seeds are cleaned, 

salted & sun-drying as we speak) 

and cooked them up in the crockpot. 

After processing, I think I have about 4 cups of pumpkin pureé in the frig.

Decided I would try to come up with a molasses cookie of sorts. Here's what I wanted it to look like:

(source)

In the food processor I creamed 1/2 c. butter with 1/2 c. molasses. I added one cup pumpkin pureé and one teaspoon vanilla. After those were smooth and creamy, I beat in an egg.


I sifted in these dry ingredients: 3 cups gluten-free flour, 1 & 1/2 teaspoons guar gum, 3 "mini-scoops" Stevia, 1 T. ground ginger, 1 T. cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon cracked black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 t. sea salt, & 1 teaspoon baking soda. I pulsed until I had a nice dough to refrigerate for an hour.

After preheating the oven to 350°, I rolled tablespoon-sized balls & set on my parchment-covered cookie sheet. (OK, gotta admit, the dough was still quite sticky.) I baked them for 20 minutes.


I liked the flavor of the baked cookie, but wanted the outside to have a little more texture & sweetness. My substitute for rolling in sugar was 1/2 cup unsweetened ground coconut mixed with a "mini-scoop" of Stevia.

Gorgeous.

So I baked & cooled about 3 dozen of these things:

The cookie reminded me slightly of those coconut covered donut holes...

Where's my coffee!?!

Blue Boy roses

I ♥ roses.

I ♥ blue.

I most especially ♥ my Blue Boy roses.

How I wish my blog came with a "smell this" link; for these have filled our home with their incredible scent! Thank you God, for bountiful gifts from my garden.

back to work...

The boys' Cita (Aunt Cynthia) & Uncle Chris & cousins were visiting over Thanksgiving. For her I embroidered a flour sack towel to commemorate our dinner.

"Ready for Harvest" design by Urban Threads

Because, at this house we don't do nasty sicky-sweet disgusting sweet potatoes with brown sugar & mini marshmallows! We chop root vegetables and roast them with rosemary oil. You would not believe how delicious they are -- all browned & caramelized from their natural sugars. . .

And yes, I did make my own rosemary oil (gots to do sumthin' with that rosemary bush growing in my garden!)

Pesto "Bubble" Bread

Things I'm Loving...

I might have two weeks-worth... but I'm loving that blogger is working today! (Now if they'd just fix the dinosaur that is posting pics...)

I'm kinda sorta loving that I now have two teenage boys living with me. Mr.-in-the-middle turned 13 this past week...

He & my wonderful Daddy have birthdays 3 days apart.

I'm loving that my youngest helped make the pizzas for the birthday celebration.

(He even made the dough batches in the bread machine!)

Loving a late-arriving Mother's Day gift from hubs. Whereas our Chipotle Tabasco bottle was always close-to-empty, now it can always be full!

We loved having "Cousin Barney" come visit Auggie for a week.

I loved taking dinner to a man who came back from the dead. Literally! His doctors marvel (ummm -- God's not surprised!) at his miraculous 47 day recovery from what turned out to be a severe allergic reaction to a medication they gave him during routine surgery. Even his gangrenous toes they wanted to amputate are coming back to life! What an incredible testimony to our Creator!

I'm loving the slight spring-like reprieve we're having in our weather.

Loved finding this guy & his brothers waiting on the vine...



(grilled eggplant is a fave at our house!)

Totally love the new banner in the gym!

Loving that Aunt Cita gets to spend a little time with boys who haven't seen her for three years!


May 2008 - Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast



(May 2011 - her one food request...)



But what I'm loving most is that we're finished with the Virtual Academy -- so now I can have my computer back!

Just want to thank PaisleyJade for her weekly reminder:

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

My boys will do anything for this dish...

Seriously, an.ee.thing! I asked the younger two to please wash the dishes or I would have to fix tuna salad for dinner. (hmmmm -- maybe they'd do anything to avoid tuna...)

Actually, it ranks up there with pizza for mr-in-the-middle. He requests it for all sorts of special occasions -- his birthday, Christmas, when the grands are here...

The ingredients are few, the pans are two -- & you can whip it up in very little time!

Serve with parmesan & fresh focaccia... (the hubs likes to use sriracha on his!)

Of course we do change the recipe up every once-in-a-while.  I usually add fresh garlic to brown slightly after the onions. At times when I don't have onions I will use the dried ones from the spice aisle. If there's not spinach in the garden I use the fresh-packaged from Costco.


Now I'm going to link this up to Shanty2Chic's Shanty Suppers...