Jean:

Our oldest grandson had requested eggplant parmesan for his recent visit, so before our eggplants ripened, I bought one at a farmers’ market and started practicing the whole regimen of dipping the slices of eggplant in seasoned flour, beaten egg, and then bread crumbs and/or panko and frying them before covering them with tomato sauce and cheeses for the final bake.  The result was somewhat underwhelming.  I wasn’t sure if the defect lay in the eggplant itself or the method of preparation, but I knew that method was very time-consuming and messy.

When the eggplants from our garden were ready for harvest in September, I took one and decided to try an alternate approach.  I coated each side of each slice with about a tablespoon of olive oil and roasted them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, turning them over halfway.  I expected it to take longer, but I took them out when the outsides looked slightly golden brown and the insides were soft.  It was so easy and delicious that I decided to forget about the whole breading process, except that I saw a suggestion online to put some bread crumbs mixed with parmesan cheese on top of the whole pan after assembling the eggplant and sauce.  It also sounded easy and delicious.

However, since I always want to use up what I have in the pantry, and I had lasagna noodles, I ended up making a vegetarian lasagna, adding roasted peppers from the garden as well as eggplant in between the layers of noodles.  I still owe my grandson an eggplant parmesan, I think. But he loved the result!

My tip for lasagna noodles?  If you fully cook them before assembling them with the sauce and cheeses, they may be too soft to handle and tear easily.  I don’t like the supposedly pre-cooked noodles you can buy; they are still too hard on the edges, I find.  So I parboil the noodles myself.  When they look about half-cooked, I drain, rinse and oil them so they can cool off without sticking together while I assemble the other elements of the dish.  They finish cooking nicely as you bake the final assembled dish.  Just put the cheese on top toward the end of baking unless you like it more brown.

Chris:

September ended just yesterday, and I will call it the month of the eggplants. Last year at this time (“Between the Seasons: September 20, 2018”) I sentimentalized about the end of summer. I had pulled out all the summer veggies except for two pepper plants that were barely hanging on–but as I looked beneath one of the eggplant bushes (little fingers variety) I actually discovered eight smaller fruit that I had missed! But it was too late for any more eggplants that still might have had a mind to grow. I had already pulled out the bushes.

This year, as I remarked in last month’s entry (“August 2019: July and Thensome”), had been a summer eggplant wasteland. Out of three black beauty plants, we didn’t get even one fruit until late July, despite many lavender flowers. I hoped that August would provide a “bumper crop,” but that was just wishful thinking. Only in the last week of August did a few buds start turning into tiny fruit.

Well, September brought the windfall–close to a dozen huge beauties from the three plants, with half of them still on the bushes as the month ended. Jean’s eggplant peppers parmesan lasagna (described above) is just one of several dishes that have sparked her creativity in the kitchen. Here’s another of her creations: her chicken eggplant red pepper salad, a great blend of hot and cold:

How long will the eggplant last? I won’t make the mistake this year of pulling out the eggplants too early. I just saw another tiny fruit growing and there are many lavender flowers blooming. As long as the temps in the 70s hold, who knows how many more may appear?

Peppers

Three plants–the mild red, the mild green, and the spicy cajun red–still thrive in the late September, early October garden.  Jean just put some into her beef chili, and they’ll be great in more eggplant parm and in the veggie hashes and salads like those we described above and last month in the blog. The cajun red is the champ of the group. You can see (below) all the green fruit still ripening toward red on the bushes today.

Unlike last year, when the last two pepper plants were just holding on in late September, these plants look good and fruitful for at least a few weeks, as long as the temps hold.

Late September Garden Views