Simple Eggplant Triumph

After work on Saturday I needed some vegetable QT. I haven't been cooking because of a fairly busy travel/work schedule, and the lack of fresh veggies in the house was getting to me.

So I hit up my favorite co-op, Wild Oats Market, in Williamstown.

I can always find staples and interesting new things to try in their produce department. Plus they have a really simple visual system in place for identifying local, organic and conventionally grown products. Orange = Local (and will also be labeled organic if grown that way), Green = Organic and Yellow = Conventional. Saturday I was not disappointed. I took home a tasty looking white peach, a green zebra tomato and finally an italian eggplant.

These lovely veggies are much more reasonably sized for a single-serving cook, not to mention their white and purple skins are just so pretty sitting in the kitchen! (Still not my photo...digi cam coming soon!)

Today I didn't have to work, so I decided to get a jump on the cooking for the week (something I always tell myself I will do...then never actually manage to. So go me.). I considered making pasta sauce or baba ghanoush but both of those things, while simple, still seemed like way too much work for a day off. So instead, I whipped up some quick eggplant dip/spread/mush of glory. And all took were 3 ingredients and 4 spices!

First, I had to prepare the the eggplant. If you don't want your eggplant to come out gummy, you have to draw out some of the natural moisture. For this recipe I chopped the eggplant into about 1 inch cubes, threw the whole mess into a colander and sprinkled it all with about a 1/2 Tbsp of salt. After tossing the eggplant together I left the colander resting over a bowl for about 20 minutes (or just the amount of time it took me to hand-wash the dishes). During that time, a liquid that looked suspiciously like whiskey collected in the bottom bowl. I bet there is something you could do with that liquid (my friends father bakes bread with veggie liquids!) but I was just not in the mood to do that round of googling tonight, so that went down the sink. I then rinsed the salt off of the eggplant and squeezed all of the water out of the veggie chunks. I mean, really really SQUEEEEEZED. Give your hands a workout, you will be happy later!

I heated about 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a non-stick skillet, then tossed in my well wrung-out eggplant. I added a bit of salt (just a bit! sometimes the eggplant stays a bit salty after the draining process), about a teaspoon of cumin, a dash of ground coriander and a dash of turmeric (turns the whole thing really yellow!). Finally I tossed in 2 roughly chopped cloves of garlic and cooked the whole thing just until it started to smell delicious.

After letting this yellow, garlicky tastiness cool for 5 or so minutes, I buzzed it all up in my small-sized food processor (which is mine courtesy of my mom's friend...who I am not sure knows that the food processor lives with me now). I drizzled in about a 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil until the texture was spreadable, but not exactly smooth.

Then I promptly toasted up two slices of Anadama bread from Cricket Creek Farm, grabbed a bit spoon and spread away. Helllllloooooo simple and delicious. Plus, an italian eggplant about the size of a softball gave me a cup and a half of spread, more than enough to last me through the week. Yay planning ahead!