Eggplant Tomato Soup

Maybe my favourite thing ever is when cold weather mixes with gorgeous early summer produce. Australia is in the middle of one of its wettest and coolest summers on record (it’s only 25 C! woe, according to the Aussies!). This does mean that everything is lush and green and growing, though, so the produce these days has been fabulous. Despite a broken fridge—the true woeful part of this story—we’ve been taking advantage of all the fresh fruit and veg to the nth degree.

This soup is a wonderful combination of a cold weather comfort food made with fresh seasonal veggies—or a great recipe to use up a slightly aged eggplant, since the soup transforms it into a soft mushy deliciousness anyway. I figure you could even use zucchini instead of the eggplant for something more ratatouille-esque. I made my own chicken stock for this recipe; omit the chicken and use vegetable stock instead for something vegetarian, and use gluten free noodles for a gluten free option.

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Edited: December 7th, 2010

Roasted Vegetable Tortilla Stack

Tortilla stacks are a wonderful dinner, in my opinion, and are such a versatile dish once you get used to the basics. My mum often made a “Mexican” version of this, which had refried beans, onions, salsa, and sometimes ground beef in it. This particular recipe I discovered in a cookbook my friend Ramsay brought with him to Australia (check it out at the bottom of the post, you know a cookbook is good when it gets schlepped to the other side of the world!), and is a bit of a twist on the recipe my mum used often.

I would say that this is a cheap, healthy dish that works great for leftovers, except that every time we serve this up it never seems to make it to the leftover stage! Everyone just gobbles it right up. Oh well, I guess I can’t really complain, can I? It takes a bit of love and care to make, but is well worth the effort.

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Edited: June 16th, 2010

Thai Chicken Pizza

I think you know a recipe is good when you’ve written about it before. Every time you make something you get a bit more insight into making it, though, and get to refine it over and over again. Maybe I’m a food nerd but I really love seeing how recipes can evolve and change. Sometimes it’s because I get adventurous, sometimes it’s because someone else is in the kitchen with me and says, “Why don’t we try this?” and almost always the results are great.

This pizza is one such recipe. I’ve made it vegan (except for the crust), I’ve made it for lunches, I’ve made it for Luke’s family (including hungry teenage boys). Every time it’s been a crowd pleaser!

The recipe contains some suggestions and variations (including the vegetarian / vegan), so keep those in mind depending on what’s in your fridge. The peanut sauce recipe I posted earlier this week is fantastic for this!

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Edited: May 2nd, 2010

Easy homemade baba ganoush

In the last couple of months, I’ve finally had time to go to my local farmer’s market on the occasional Saturday. I’ve been a few times now, and the wares there are amazing–and with all the samples offered, you could have a delicious breakfast without paying a cent!

We get a good bag full of veggies every time we go, and a couple weeks ago, we found some eggplants that were 3 for $2.50. Too good to pass up, especially as they were perfectly ripe and firm. I’m still warming up to eggplant, but it’s a pretty easy vegetable to love once you learn how to cook it to suit your tastebuds. I made one recipe with two of the eggplants that kind of worked–it tasted great, but the photos weren’t all that pretty so they might not end up on the blog. By the time I got to the third eggplant about a week later, it was a bit over-ripe, though had held up far better than any eggplant I’d ever purchased from a grocery store. So, baba ganoush it was!

If you plan on serving this at a party, be sure to double all the ingredients as it’s sure to go fast!

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Edited: February 26th, 2010