L is for the luscious purple hue...
O is for the oven temperature (450 or higher)
V is very, very extraordinary
E is enjoying roasted eggplant over coconut barley
Hello! I cook, I promise. In fact, I'm still cooking all the time. I find that if I eat out too much, the food, no matter whether it be Chinese, Indian, Thai, burgers, even salads, etc., all ends up tasting the same - rich, salty, and fatty. Which are all wonderful things, but become less enjoyable as the number of times we eat out or order in edges up over the course of a week.
Which brings me to the things I'm cooking. After four months of maternity leave and making all of my old standards again and again - cassoulet, eggplant-mozarella-sausage pasta, pasta alla vodka, and even some Chicken Kiev - I found myself sick of my own cooking. Sad. Really sad. Because I like my food better than almost all other food in the world. I can say that, right? I mean, I know what I like, and I have a supremely unfussy eater in Mr. TD, so I almost always make things that are precisely to my (our?) tastes.
But sometimes those tastes can become saturated, and all of the hearty heaviness of the above meals, in triplicate so that we had leftovers to smooth the way through the land of sleep deprivation, became too much. I can't eat something I don't feel like, end of story, and so we've branched out. Just in time for our San Francisco summer.
San Francisco summer is a contradiction, for it is frequently a cold and foggy place, but our local grocers have tables groaning with the fruits of a California summer. Our meals can bear to be slightly heavier than the average summer cook's, all the while with the mission of eating as many fresh veggies as possible.
That said, here is the first of our meals that has now been on repeat these last few weeks for its ease and comparative lightness.
Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini with Coconut Barley
Set the oven to 450.
Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch rounds. Slice zucchini very thinly - I like it lengthwise for this, but it makes no difference. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast on a rimmed baking sheet for 25 minutes, checking every so often to shift things around.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Load up the rice cooker with 1 1/2 cups of barley, a can of coconut milk, a handful of almonds, and raisins. Add enough water or stock to have enough liquid (probably 2 1/2 cups or so?), and set the machine.
Go and have a glass of wine while it all takes care of itself.
Serve with cold Greek yoghurt drizzled with olive oil (and if you had some tomatoes, a roast tomato wouldn't go amiss here either).
