WIAW and Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday, Food Edition

Last night I made another delicious recipe from my Cooking from the Farmer's Market cookbook.  As I mentioned in this post, I wasn't able to make it to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning but the folks at Dierberg's (a local grocery store chain here in St. Louis) saved the day.  They had quite a few fruits and vegetables for sale that were locally grown and harvested including eggplant, which was the star of last night's dish, Rolled Eggplant with Sausage and Mozzarella.  This dish was easy-peasy and tasted delicious.  It could very easily be made vegetarian by omitting the sausage from the sauce.

Rolled Eggplant with Sausage and Mozzarella, modified from Cooking from the Farmer's Market cookbook

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds Italian or Asian eggplant, trimmed and cut lengthwise into slices approximately 1/4 inch thick--approximately two medium sized eggplant

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

5 ounces Italian sausage, casings removed--I browned up a pound and a half and then added the remaining sausage to our leftover tomato sauce from earlier this week to freeze and have for dinner next week!

2 cups tomato sauce--we used homemade, find the recipe here

1 cup whole-milk ricotta--as I got out the ingredients to make dinner, I discovered the ricotta (which I bought over a week ago) had gone bad.  I used 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese and 2 ounces of cream cheese instead which worked great!

4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into small pieces--if you have a Trader Joe's nearby, I recommend getting your mozzarella (and other cheeses) there.  I saved two dollars by buying the cheese for this recipe there!

4 tablespoons grated hard cheese, such as Parmesan

1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley--we used 1 teaspoon dried parsley instead


Kitchen Supplies:
Baking sheet
Ramekin
Pastry Brush
Frying pan
Medium bowl
9 inch baking dish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Brush both sides of the eggplant with the 1/4 cup of olive oil and season with salt.  Place in an even layer on a baking sheet and bake until lightly browned on the bottom, about ten minutes.  Turn the slices and bake until tender, approximately six minutes.  Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, combine ricotta, mozzarella, 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan and parsley together.  Season with salt and pepper.

In a frying pan over medium-high heat, warm the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Saute the sausage until cooked through, about 3 minutes.  Note that it will take longer (about 10 minutes) if you are browning a whole package of sausage as I did.  Stir in the tomato sauce and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.

Spread half of the sauce on the bottom of the baking dish.  Place a spoonful of the cheese mixture near the wide end of each eggplant slice, roll up, and place in dish.  Continue assembling the rolls until all eggplant slices have been filled.



Spoon the remaining sauce between the rolls and sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan.  Bake until the sauce is bubbling, about 20 minutes.  Serve immediately.

Blogger is being weird and won't let me load photos properly--grr!

Serves: 4

As you can see, there is nothing particularly carnivorous about this dish and with all those great cheeses in each roll-up, a meat-free version might taste even better!  As per usual, I had the leftovers today which is what makes this a WIAW post.




Now onto the Oh How Pinteresting part of the post.




I, like many people, have discovered the wonder  that is Pinterest and have been pinning my heart away for several weeks now.  One of my favorite boards is my cooking board, Recipes to Make, especially right now where my creativity in the kitchen is limited to using up ingredients we already have. 

So today, here are some recipes I really hope to make in the near future (perhaps from South Bend!)

Pasta with Prosciutto, Snap Peas, Mint and Cream

Source: food52.com via Kt on Pinterest

Linguine with Sardines, Fennel and Tomato

Source: food52.com via Kt on Pinterest

Chilled Avocado Soup

Source: wholeliving.com via Kt on Pinterest

Kiwi Summer Roll--new things to stuff wonton wrappers with!

Source: wholeliving.com via Kt on Pinterest

Bacon Streusel Maple Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Source: endlesssimmer.com via Kt on Pinterest

Are you on Pinterest?  If so, let me know so I can follow you!  If you'd like to check out more of my foodie pins (or home decor or any other kind for that matter) I can be found here.

Don't have Pinterest yet but want to get on board?  Leave me a message in the comments with your email address and I'll send you an invite!

What are you eating this Wednesday?  Anything in particular you are pinning pining over this Wednesday evening?

P.S. If you do not already read Jen's (Peas and Crayons) or Michelle's (The Vintage Apple) blogs, you really should.  Click on the links and head on over.  You know you want to!

What I Ate (and Will Eat) Wednesday

As I mentioned in this post (and this one), last night we made Chicken Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sauce.  It was so good and so easy I just had to share it with you.  Normally I think of pumpkin as a fall or winter vegetable but in this recipe it becomes more of a mole sauce (without the work!) which would taste great any time of year!

Warning: if you have a cat that is anything like Woods and loves chicken, be prepared for lots of meowing and leg rubbing while you shred the chicken.  I don't think Woods stopped talking for the entire 15 minutes it took me to shred the chicken even after I gave him a few pieces in the living room (where he gets all treats in a vain attempt to keep him from begging).  It was so funny; I really wish we would have gotten the whole thing on video!

Chicken Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sauce, taken from Martha Stewart's Kitchen Everyday Food cookbook

Ingredients:
1/2 roast chicken, skin removed and meat shredded
6 scallions, thinly sliced
Coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 jalapeno chile, quartered--remove ribs and sees for less heat if desired.  I removed them because I am not a big fan of super spicy things but with the amount of pumpkin in the sauce, you could leave some or all of the ribs and seeds in.  We missed the heat!
1 teaspoon chili powder
8 corn tortillas (6 inch)
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated sharp white Cheddar cheese

Kitchen Supplies:
Medium mixing bowl
Blender or food processor
Cutting board
2 quart baking dish
Sheet tray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the chicken and scallions.  Season generously with salt and pepper; set aside.

In a blender, puree the pumpkin, garlic, jalapeno, chili powder, 2 1/2 cups water, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until smooth.  Hold the top down firmly with one hand as the blender will be quite full.  Pour 1 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a 2 quart baking dish (square or rectangle).

Lay the tortillas on a work surface; mound the chicken mixture on half of each tortilla, dividing evenly.  Roll up each tortilla in a tight log; place seam side down over the sauce in the baking dish.  My logs didn't stay together very well but the pumpkin sauce and cheese cover all sorts of things.

Pour the remaining sauce on top; sprinkle with the cheese.  Place the dish on a baking sheet; bake until the cheese is golden and the sauce is bubbling, 25 to 30 minutes.  Ours took 30 minutes to get really bubbly and golden brown.  Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Serves: 4

According to the cookbook, this dish can be made up to 8 hours ahead of time.  Simply prepare as described above, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake.  Be sure to add a few minutes to the cooking time to account for the chilled dish.

This recipe was everything a weeknight dinner should be (in my book at least): quick, simple, cheap and tasty.  We will definitely be making this again soon.  As is our tradition, we had leftovers of this yummy dinner for lunch today, hence the What I Ate part of the post.





Now for the What I Will Eat part.  In yesterday's post, I mentioned that meal plans should be flexible.  Tonight's dinner is a perfect example of that.  We were planning on making shrimp and egg-knot soup tonight but J emailed me earlier today that he wanted to do something fun tonight.  All of the ingredients for the soup were freezer and pantry items that could keep for another week so we quickly devised a plan: 

Dinner at this local-food restaurant (which came recommended courtesy of Slow Food St. Louis) followed by a free night of jazz music at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  We will have an appetizer and dinner at Brasserie before we feast on homemade chocolate and cheese danishes and wine at the Botanical Gardens.

Source: dressdesigndecor.blogspot.com via Kt on Pinterest

Want to know the very best part?  This whole night will be free!  You see, we are having dinner on my parents thanks to a generous anniversary gift they sent our way that has been burning a hole in our pockets sitting in our account for a while now.   THANKS MOM AND DAD!  The concert is free.  We had a bottle of Charles Shaw Pinot Grigio in our fridge and ingredients for the danishes in the pantry and freezer.  So we might have to pay for parking in the Central West End but I think I can handle that.  I can't wait!

What have you eaten this Wednesday?  What will you eat for dinner?  In my family, we always talk about what we are going to eat for our next meal while we are eating our current one, which goes a long way in explaining my love of meal planning and talking about food.  Happy Wednesday everyone!