Seven Fucking Eggplants

So. A couple of Fridays ago, I went to the Fresh Fields and loaded up on all sorts of stuff I could put on bruschetta, because I was optimistic and in a good mood. This included four small eggplants, which I was going to roast, chop, season with balsamic vinegar and rosemary, and spread on toasted ciabatta. Then when I got home, I discovered that the stove was broken. I coulda maybe used the grill or even the George Foreman grill, but the whole broken stove thing was a major bummer and a major derailment of my preferred lifestyle, so I had no will for experimentation. So the eggplants, they sat in the crisper, along with some red bell peppers and the usual other crap.

Then, last Friday, the Old Woman showed up bearing three additional eggplants. So I ended up with seven fucking eggplants. Seven! HolyMaryMotherofGod SEVEN eggplants. I should point out that the Old Woman did not know I already had four eggplants, and if I had not already possessed four eggplants, I would have welcomed a gift of three lovely eggplants from the garden at the Old Folks Home. As it as, however, I had four and she brought me three.


4+3=7


You cannot possibly imagine the angst this caused me.

Oh yes we can. Everything causes you angst. You probably had to retire to your boudoir with the vapors.

Well, you don't know everything about me! I did not have to retire to my boudoir with the vapors. I just had to mull it over and I got sucked into a spiraling vortex of indecision. No vapors. So there!

Anyway, the stove is now fixed and the answer finally came to me: Eggplant Parmesan.

Duh!

Well it took me a while, OK? My brain is diseased, remember?

Oh please. Is that your excuse for everything now?

Maybe. Shut up!


As I was saying, I decided to make eggplant parmesan. You start with a decent tomato sauce. There are many different types of tomato sauces, but today's special was WhatEVer sauce, which is a combination of whatever tomatoes and tomato products I happened to have around plus an old red bell pepper that I was going to have to throw out tomorrow if I didn't use it. And an herb of choice. Today's lucky herb was oregano and marjoram.


Sauce: made.


Then you prepare the eggplants. Actually, you prepare the eggplants while the sauce is simmering, if you're efficient. Half the point of cooking is to try to get everything to be finished at about the same time.

To prepare the eggplants, retrieve them from the crisper. Oh dear. One of them didn't make it, poor thing. After chucking it in the trash bin a brief, but proper funeral, wash the six survivors. Peel the older ones, assume that the fresher ones will have a tender skin and if they don't, you can always gripe to the Old Folks later about the poor quality of the free vegetables they keep giving you, and slice them about 1/2 thick or so. I usually slice the the long way because the long slices are easier to arrange in a baking dish later than round ones are. Salt them generously and put them on a tray. Oh, please. Who has a tray? cookie sheet and let them sit for a while.

Why? No one ever tells you why.

Well, eggplants that are old tend to be bitter and more likely to give you that astringent sort of aaaacccckkkk in the back of your throat, and salting them draws out some of their liquid and with the liquid, some of their bitter juices and aaaacccckkkk-making properties.

How do you know if your eggplants are old?

Your eggplants are old if they:

1. are large (cuz it takes extra time for them to grow big, see)
2. are from the grocery store (you don't really wanna know how long it takes to get from the fields to the store)
3. have been sitting in your crisper for two weeks
4. are starting to get a few mushy spots

Fresh ones that are small and that came from the garden in the last day or so probably don't need to be sweated, so if I had cooked the three gift eggplants from the Old Folks in a prompt manner, they probably would not have needed sweating. Wait a minute. The Old Folks like to amuse themselves by messing with Dirtbunny. They really can't be trusted, especially not with something as important as food. God knows how old those eggplants were. They may have been trying to aaaacccckkkk Dirtbunny just for kicks. New Rule: Always sweat eggplants from the Old Folks.

You know, just because you cross it out doesn't mean we can't read it.

And your point is........?

Get over yourself. No one is trying to aaaacccckkkk you on purpose. Sheesh!

You're new here, then, and not familiar with the many ways in which Dirtbunny is cursed. How very nice for you.

Moving on..... after the salted slices have sat around for a while (say, about as long as it takes for the second half of the Man City v Wolves match, which Man City won no thanks to Craig Bellamy, that scrote), you will see some brown juices in droplets on the surface. Your slices are ready. So set up your assembly line:

Left to right: stack of paper towels for blotting brown stuff off slices, shallow dish of egg wash, shallow dish of seasoned bread crumbs...

Seasoned how?

Seasoned however you want for crying out loud. Just don't use the ones that come already seasoned from the can. Those are gross. They are only for stupid people who don't know what they're doing.

You didn't really answer the question, though, did you? We're beginning to see why Bossboy thinks you're a pain in the ass.

You don't get to cross stuff out! That's only for me! Now stop interrupting!

.....I season mine with salt, pepper, chopped flat-leaf parsley, and generous amounts of parmesan because that's where the name of the dish comes from, and a tray cookie sheet cutting board for receiving the slices.




Look who's helping Dirtbunny!

No one cares about your retarded dog.

That's not a very nice thing to say. Everyone loves Kirby!

that's what you think

So what you do next is

she's deaf. she can't hear us when we talk really small. heehee

you blot a slice on the paper towels, put it in the egg and flip it over to make sure it's all wet, then put it in the bread crumbs and get a good solid coating on there, and then put it aside on your....um....cutting board....

guess what?

....Repeat over and over....

what?

....until they are all done. Kirby is in this photo too, see?

chicken butt

If you're hardcore traditional, you fry them in an inch of olive oil until they're crunchy. If you'd rather spend your calories on alcohol, you don't bother with that. And here's more Kirby!!

yawn

So, what you do next is layer the slices in a baking dish with tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella, and more parmesan cheese, and then you bake it for about half an hour or so until you can poke a knife through the slices quite easily.

And that's what's for dinner. And that's how you get rid of seven fucking eggplants.

we hate eggplant

Things In The Freezer That Must Be Gotten Rid Of

Problem: Freezer contains ancient coconut from days of yore. Plus, bought too many eggs for holiday baking spree.



Solution: Coconut cream pie.


Problem: Coconut cream pie is traditionally topped with meringue. Dirtbunny cannot face meringue today and it's supposed to rain, not that you would know it from looking at the sky.


Solution: Leave off the goddamn meringue. There's no law against it.


Problem: What'll I do with the egg whites?


Solution: Scrambled eggs for breakfast.


Problem: But plain scrambled egg whites are rubbery and gross.


Solution: Scrambled egg whites with a whole egg and some cheese.


Moral: It always comes down to cheese. Never run out.



The End.

What Dirtbunny Did with the Leftover Chicken

Why, she made The Man's favorite: Chicken Pot Pie. At least that's what we call it around here.


First, you chop an onion and some carrots and celery and at least half a pound of mushrooms, but the more the better. Saute it all up in some butter or olive oil. While the veg are cooking, make a bechamel (butter and flour in a roux, whisk in chicken broth and cook until thickened) enriched with whatever dairy product you have. I would ordinarily use milk, but I have cream leftover from all the baking, so I used some of that. By now, your veg are done so add your cut-up leftover chicken to that and season well.


Now go make a big biscuit, which we've been over before.

Mix your meat, veg, and sauce together, put it in the patented pan, and put the big biscuit on top of that. Bake until the biscuit is done and the sauce is bubbly.

Further Holiday Baking

Blogger is not letting me cut and paste today, so this post took forever. I hope you damn well appreciate it.




So. Airplane cookies. They are done, along with some snowmen, some trees, and some lighthouses. These are from last year:

This year, The Man excused me from having to frost them (thanks!), so they turned out like this:

Clearly not Air Superiority Blue. For the first time in his life (as far as he remembers), The Man decorated Christmas cookies. He helped with about half, and then I excused him to watch Liverpool-Arsenal and finished them up myself. No Fernando Torres, Fabregas got injured, and Adebayor got sent off, so fewer compelling players for me to watch.

Airplane cookies. That's that.

But wait! There's more! The cinnamon rolls are in the freezer. How do you make cinnamon rolls? Well you start by making a babka dough in the big mixer. Babka is a sweet yeast dough with butter, eggs, sugar, and sour cream. Because of all the extra fat, it turns out very smooth and silky. Add the flour until the dough cleans the side of the bowl.

Keep going.

I said, UNTIL THE DOUGH CLEANS THE SIDE OF THE BOWL. Do the sides of the bowl look clean to you? It's not like you're doing the work by hand so be patient.

Now it's ready. Please to knead.

You could do all the kneading in the mixer, but then you might as well use a bread machine and what's the point? I always do some of it in the mixer and then finish it up by hand. All of this, of course, is performed under the supervision of Mess Sergeant Yarn Bandit. His job is to beg for taste tests and to lick any flour or drips off the floor.

And where is Kirby during all of this? He used to watch from the sidelines, but now he's more aggressive. Here's a less intrusive version of his "help":

See how he leans in? I think he likes me. This, however, is a typical chef's eye view:

That would be him, wedged between me and the cabinet (in this case, but could be stove or the sink), often standing on my feet.

Anyway, if the babka looks like this:

then you have some more kneading to do. When you're done, the dough will feel satiny and heavy and smooth and have a little bounce to it.

So you put it in a bowl and set it somewhere to rise. On days when the temperature doesn't go above freezing, I do it in the oven (turn the oven on, let it get up to about 110 degrees, then turn it off). Let it go until it is about doubled.

Then punch it down. Literally.

If you have a lot of time, knead it about 10 times, reform it into a ball, and then let it rise again. At some point, though, you need to stop. Roll it out into a big ole rectangle (more or less). Brush with melted butter.

Sprinkle with a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar (and nuts if you must, but you know how The Man feels about male baked goods).

Then roll it up.

See? Easy.

Then I slice the roll into pieces about an inch thick or so and put them in the pan. The recipe itself says "cram" them in and so I do.

And now they go in here, somehow, until the 24th, when they go into the fridge to defrost and rise one last time.

Yes, those are biscotti.

On Christmas morning, they go into the oven and when they're done in there, they get drizzled with icing.

I'd rather not have to do them in advance. I'm never completely sure that the turn in the freezer won't hurt the yeast somehow. However, since Babette does not live here, the only alternative to doing them in advance is getting up at 3 a.m. to make sure they're done for breakfast, and that ain't happening.

Holiday Baking Update

We all you know are curious about how Bunny's friend Mr. Kitchen Aid Mixer (thanks Daddy!) is doing this December. He is getting a fair combination of rest and exercise. Here is where we are so far.

• Fruit cake. I only wanted one, and only a little one at that, but my recipe is for several big ones. What to do? Many years ago, before her sexist public school education sucked it out of her, Bunny was a math semi-genius. She usually needs The Man to do arithmetic for her, and Mr. Laptop balances her checkbook, but Bunny can still do food-related math and geometry. Some things are just too important to forget. So fruit cake is basically nuts and dates and candied fruit with enough batter to bind it together. EUREKA! Bunny filled her mini-loaf pan with enough nuts and dates and candied fruit to fill it firmly with a little crown on top. Then she divided her batter recipe by four (seven eggs divided by four equals two eggs, but who's counting?). Then she dumped the nuts and dates and candied fruit into the batter and mixed it up until everything was nicely coated. Then she scraped the nuts and dates and candied fruit back into the mini-loaf pan and pressed it down firmly. Then she poured enough of the remaining batter over the nuts and dates and candied fruit to fill the gaps without overflowing. Then she baked it and WOW a little bitty fruit cake! Then she cooled it. Then she soaked some cheesecloth in Myer's rum. Then she wrapped the fruit cake in the rum-soaked cheesecloth. Then she put the whole thing in a Ziploc bag and pressed the air out and put it all in the freezer, where it will stay. On December 23, we will thaw it out and on December 24, we will serve it. Perfect.
• Biscotti. We did these yesterday: almonds and amaretto and candied ginger. The house still smells like them.
• Airplane cookies are on today's to-do list. Today I mix and chill the batter and tomorrow I roll it out, bake it, and decorate it. Tomorrow is the big day (and the biggest mess), so that is the only thing on the agenda for tomorrow.
• Today I am making a spice cake for Christmas Eve dessert. An old-fashioned spice cake with penuche icing (look it up. If you are reading this, then you have Google.) Again, a big one is too much for our little house. Well, not really. I could probably eat a whole one if I tried, but that wouldn't be good for me and it would stop being fun after the second piece. So I cut the recipe in half and I'm baking it in a square pan (it's in the oven as we speak) and the plan is to cut it in half and stack the layers so we end up with a rectangular loaf-shaped cake. Anyway, today I make the cake and freeze it. On Christmas Eve, I'll defrost it and frost it (har har).

There are few left on the to-do list for later in the week, not least of which is a Buche de Noel, because I didn't make one last year. But that all comes later.

The Only Brownie Recipe You'll Ever Need

I've tried many, and I keep coming back to the one I grew up with. It could be one of those Proustian things but, as far as I'm concerned, here is what a brownie is supposed to be:

Melt 4 oz. each of best-quality unsweetened chocolate and butter. Let cool slightly. Beat together 2 cups sugar and 4 eggs. Add in butter, chocolate, and a splash of vanilla, and then blend in one cup of flour. Pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish and let it go for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool before you cut them or the top crust will crumble into nothingness.

If you must, doctor them up with nuts, chips, coconut, frosting, etc. The Man likes all his baked goods female and I almost always humor him and leave the nuts out.

That is all.

A Craving is Satisfied

I have been wanting to have toasted cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast for several weeks now. It's a good thing for when you're sick because it makes you feel cared for. Cinnamon raisin bread is heartier and less of a dessert than cinnamon rolls. But (and people who grew up with real food will know what I'm talking about) nothing you can get at the bakery, much less at the supermarket, comes anywhere near the stuff you can make for yourself at home. But when you're sick, who is up to baking bread? (No--we don't do bread machines here. Just--no, and that's that.)

Yesterday, I decided that I wanted goddamned cinnamon raisin bread and no 35-day old virus was going to stop me. This is how you do it:

1. Soak some raisins in warm water.
2. While the raisins are soaking, proof the yeast and warm some milk, butter, sugar, and salt.
3. Put the liquid and the yeast in your big Kitchen Aid mixer with about 1/2 cup of wheat germ and 2 cups of flour and blend.
4. Keep adding flour. When you've got about 4 cups of flour in, turn the mixer up to medium and beat the dough until it forms kind of stringy strands between the beater and the side of the bowl. You are developing the gluten, which is the structure that holds the bread up when it rises. Drain the raisins and dump them in at this point, blending a little longer.
5. Scrape down the beater and the sides of the bowl and switch to the dough hook. Keep adding flour about a half cup at a time until you've put in 6-7 cups total, depending on how wet your raisins were and the humidity that day.
6. Knead, either in the mixer or by hand, until the dough is smooth and bounces back when you poke it a little.
7. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a clean serviette, and set to rise until about double, probably 60-90 minutes depending on how warm it is that day.
8. Punch the dough down, knead lightly for a few seconds, then cut in half. Form the halves into balls and let it rest under a towel for 5-10 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, get out your loaf pans and grease them. Lightly flour your rolling surface. Blend a half-cup of sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon and set it aside.
10. Roll out one ball of dough into an approximate rectangle about 8x15 or so. It doesn't have to be perfect. Sprinkle with half of the sugar/cinnamon. Roll it up from the short end like a jelly roll. Do it fairly tightly. Pinch the ends shut and fold them under so the dough is approximately the size of your loaf pan. Repeat with the other ball.
11. Again with the towel and rising, about 60 minutes this time, or until it crowns nicely over the top of the pans, but not too high.
12. Heat the oven to 375 and bake about 45 minutes, shielding the tops with foil during the last 15 minutes or so if you want.

I typically use a mix of regular and whole wheat flour. I didn't have much regular flour this time, so I used mainly whole wheat, and this is what I ended up with:

Yum. Good toasted, or not, with butter or cream cheese. Raisins are not good for dogs, so pick the raisins out before you give any to your beagles.