Ever been to your local farmer’s market? If not, this Saturday you should definitely check it out if you have one close. There’s one here in Charlotte that has unbelievably cheap veggies. Guess how much I got this big bag of mini eggplant for? ONE buck! Couldn’t believe it. I used most of these for baba ghanoush but I saved some to do some good ol’ fashioned sauteing. By the way, though the price for this eggplant may not be typical country-wide, but I easily found them for cheap… and if I can, you can.
Now, eggplant is what we call a selfish vegetable. It takes all the flavor from everything else around it (similar to veggies like squash, zucchini, etc.) It still does have a beautiful flavor of its own, but it gives you a nice opportunity to use selfless veggies here to make them shine.
For the purpose of this recipe I’ll use 4 mini eggplants which is about 2 small servings or 1 big one.
Now take a sharp knife (a chef’s knife if you have it), and cut it right down the middle. Go slowly, take your time, it’ll be worth it if you can carefully try to cut the stem right in half too. It looks gorgeous.
Now in a skillet (preferably one that’s not nasty and scratched like mine), heat up some olive oil on medium high heat and put the eggplant in face down.
Roughly chop about 1/4 red pepper, more or less, depending on how you like it. Use yellow or orange if you prefer. Put the pepper right in the pan with the eggplant now. Add a hearty dash of sea salt now. Mmmm…
Let these cook until you flip an eggplant over and start to see it browning. The less handling by you, the better.
Once the eggplant has a little color like this below…. add a few cloves of chopped garlic. Cook until the garlic has just a tad bit of color on it.
Now plate it. Can be a perfect side dish or full meal. I also love the idea of using these as party finger foods, especially if you’ve left the stem on. Just put a big hunk of pepper, the garlic and whatever veggie you want stacked on top of the eggplant and you’ve got yourself a super cute appetizer!
4 Mini Eggplant – $.10
1/4 Red Pepper – $.29
1 Large Serving – $.39
I just grew a bunch of these on my patio and was wondering what to do with them–sauteeing seemed like a good idea, and you confirmed it! Looks good, I really like your blog so far–thank you for the inspiration!
These are truly impressive ideqs in regarding blogging.
You have touched some pleasant points here. Any way keep upp wrinting.
Just had to leave a comment to tell you thank you for the lovely simple recipe for the mini eggplants. My plant looked like it was going to perish back in July…but now it has come into its own and I’ve got LOTS of little eggplants. I think tonight will be your simple saute!
Fairytale eggplant bought today at the Union Square Farmers Market in New York. $10 a pound. But delicious.
I made this tonight — It was really good! I probably could have cooked the eggplant a little bit more than I did but it turned out well. Thanks for sharing!
I'm going to snap these up as soon as I see them. One of my favorite things to do with fairy-tale eggplant is similar: broil them on both sides coated in olive oil, then melt a tiny Parmesan sliver on top and drizzle a drop of pesto on each one – I could eat a whole pan of those for dinner. 🙂 The red peppers and garlic look very good too – nice color!
I went to the store of a local farm today and got two huge bags of veggies for only $10. They grow alot of items on sight but then go to the state farmer's market to get the others. I got a whole lb of carrots for only .50 cents!
Great job w/ the blog! Keep on cookin'!