Eggplant Parm Pizza

I'll be honest: I'm not crazy about eggplant.

I don't like how it (and mushrooms) try to replace sliced meats in vegetarian sandwiches. They always absorb all of the oil out of my stir-fry and Thai dishes, ending up too greasy without leaving any saucy-flavor for the rest of the veggies to enjoy. Nope, don't like eggplant at all.... EXCEPT in Italian restaurants where it is smothered with tomatoes and cheese, in which case I still don't like it- I love it.


Now I'm not sure about the Seattle markets (yet), but at the farmer's market in SF Civic Center the perfect time to shop is 3:45pm. At 3:30, vendors begin to throw bushels of produce into plastic bags and sell them for a dollar, and at 4:00 they begin to pack up and leave. And voila': $2 pizza toppings!


I salted the eggplant slices and pre-cooked them on a grill-pan over the stove for some nice char marks. (I've found that it's helpful to stove cook fresh produce like bell peppers, zucchini and eggplant prior to putting them on pizza because they take a little longer to soften up.) The tomatoes become a sauce without too much effort: wash; dice; simmer with olive oil, bay leaf, salt and pepper.


And then the easy part: toppings. Spread some mozzarella (I used to try freezing and grating it, but what's the point? Thin slices melt just as well). Spread some freshly-grated Parmesan. Arrange eggplant slices.


Bake! (On 450 until crust is golden brown or slightly charred)


Serve! (Preferably with a nice glass of red wine... maybe a side salad... but wine is key).

Summer Salad

I am taking a break from Spain updates (though check back later to read about delicious Andalucia!) in order to celebrate the wonderful bounty of Summer produce. There's nothing I don't love about Summer: it has berries and grilling and vacations and warm, dusky evenings (if not in San Francsico, at least somewhere)... Some like to say that California has no seasons, but if that's true, then why can't it be like this all year long?

Steve and I have begun going to the Ferry Building farmer's market semi-regularly on Saturdays to buy produce, enjoy free samples, and indulge in a late-morning glass of wine. And that is where these beautiful, beautiful heirloom tomatoes came from.


I know that tomato salads have the simplest recipe in the world: Slice tomatoes. Slice mozzarella. Put on plate. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic. Salt to taste. But for this one, I tried to implement a few tips from Jamie Oliver's repetoir, beginning with mildly dehydrating the tomatoes. That is, after the tomatoes are sliced or chopped, put them into a colander and salt generously. This adds the nice salty finish that you'll eventually want on the salad anyway, and it draws out the extra water, resulting in a more concentrated and intense tomato flavor.


I also diced and added in one mild chile pepper (the red ones I wanted were out of season; thus, I went with green), most of which was tossed with some olive oil and chopped basil and into the tomatoes. Some of the diced pepper was kept aside to garnish the mozzarella rounds.


Dish up and drizzle with balsamic... The prettiest summer salad you've ever seen!

Waterfalls and Sandwiches

We headed up to Sonoma County over President's Day weekend and stopped on our way back down to the city to do the 8.5mile hike to Alamere Falls. A beautiful walk into the Bay Area fog... coming out into sunshine along the coastline... ending in a 30ft cascade down into the Pacific.

The hike was beautiful and exactly the sort of experience that makes me so happy to live in California.

However, we began walking at 12:00pm without having lunch or packing food, and our round-trip time was just about four hours.

As I tend to get cranky without regular food intake, the last hour or so got me pretty antsy.

For some reason, as my hunger grew, my mind kept focusing in on this hypothetical sandwich:

GRILLED CHEESE, GRANNY SMITH APPLE, AND HONEY.

I promised my stomach that if it would leave me in peace until the hike's completion, I would reward it with this sandwich as soon as humanly possible. "As soon as humanly possible" ended up being several weeks later, but so goes the follow-through on promises made under duress.

The cheese (Cowgirl Creamery (?) aged white cheddar) and honey (Marshall Farms Beekepers Blend) came from the weekend Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building, which is more like a gourmet food festival than any market I've ever seen.

And it all came together with my second attempt at home-baked bread: whole wheat loaf. Served with a side salad of mixed greens, tangerine, cranberries, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Although, after all 8.5 miles of sandwich and freshly-baked bread, my favorite result from the adventure was apple slice, spread with thick honey, topped with local aged cheese.