The Frugal Gourmet: Eggplant Dip

It's Fahimah, and I'm back with my final post!
I decided to have a touch of adventure with my last blog, and go with a vegetable that I don't necessarily enjoy. That's what turned me to the recipe for Melitzanosalata, or eggplant dip.

My mother hosts parties for our close family friends, and often spends the entire day cooking up a feast for our guests. She usually asks me for help making some sort of dessert or appetizer dish, and I like to stick with baking since it's more in my comfort zone. This time, I thought it would be fit to make an appetizer! I wanted to make a Greek dish because of my interest with the history of the ancient civilization. Smith mentions that during dinner parties, "... the host, a male, did all of the cooking for his guests. They were men of rank in the community, and they came to the dinner expecting to help" (Smith 389). Throughout earlier ages in history, we have been accustomed to seeing women stereotyped as the home makers. In ancient Greece, dinner parties were all about the male host being able to show his status.

To begin, I started off with roasting an eggplant covered in olive oil in the oven. This process was the longest part of the recipe, and took about forty-five minutes in a 375 degree oven. After taking out the roasted eggplant from the oven, I let it cool and then cut it into smaller pieces with the skin still on.

Brushed with oil, before roasting

After roasting

Then, I chopped up some fresh parsley, juiced half a lemon, and crushed two cloves of garlic. I added all of these into a blender, along with the cut eggplant, white vinegar, and olive oil. My blender wasn't incorporating everything so I had to mix the mixture with a spatula in between pulsing the blender. Last, I added in yogurt, cream cheese, and bread crumbs into the dip. It's important to add salt and pepper to the dish because it becomes quite sharp, especially with the vinegar AND lemon juice inside.

Eggplant with lemon, vinegar, parsley, olive oil, and garlic

Smith recommends refrigerating the dip for the duration of the night, to thicken the mix and let it cool because of the addition of roasted eggplant (Smith 393). This eggplant dip is creamy and perfect with crackers. I decided on sesame crackers, rather than plain crackers, because they added more of a crunch. It tastes quite tart, but the tartness balances out with the yogurt and cream cheese. Even though I'm not a fan of eggplant, it wasn't an overpowering note in the dip but it was still present. I'm also quite opposed to parsley, but that note was covered up by the lemon juice. I can definitely see myself making this for a dinner party in the future!

Are you familiar with Greek dishes? Do you like to serve a menu from one region during parties, or incorporate different regional flavors all together?

Blended mixture

Arrangement on dish

Smith, Jeff. “Greece.” The Frugal Gourmet, Ballantine Books, 1984, pp. 389–393.

Healthy Green Drinks: Beetle Juice

So today, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and make a juice that I would almost never make. It is called, the Beetle Juice from the book, The Healthy Green Drink Diet by Jason Manheim. I wasn’t too excited to make this juice, but I did want to try it, and I have to say, it wasn’t as bad as I thought ti would be.

                         Ingredients:

                         1 yellow bell pepper

                         1 Fuji apple

                         1 small crown broccoli

                         1 small beet

                         ½ sweet potato

                         1 handful parsley

                         2 carrots

First, I took a yellow bell pepper, washed it, took out the seeds, and sliced it up.Then I took a Fuji apple and washed and chopped it up. After that, I did the same for the broccoli, beet, and the sweet potato then put them all into the blender. For the parsley, I first washed it, then I chopped it up. After that, I took the the carrots, chopped them up, and and put them into a food processor before putting them into a blender so they would blend more smoothly. Lastly, I put in some water for easier blending.

Now for this drink, the first ingredient would be bell pepper. When I first looked over the recipe for this juice, I was kind of weirded out by putting bell peppers in my juice, which is also the reason for why I wanted to try it out. Yellow bell peppers are a great source of vitamin C. Also, they actually contain many vitamins. They also contain fiber, protein and iron and add a sweet flavor to the juice. The next ingredient was apples which are very rich in important antioxidants, flavonoids, and dietary fibers. Moving on to our greens, our first green is broccoli. I have talked about broccoli in my last post, but what I didn’t mention before is that broccoli is also known to help combat many diseases and cancers: “Things like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, stomach, breast, lung, and colon cancer, heart disease, arthritis, and more” (Manheim 14). So as you can see, broccoli has many great health benefits relating to many different diseases or cancers that you may have been unaware of and that I was unaware of too. The next green in this drink is parsley which according to Jason Manheim is a great source for folic acid. Folic acid helps keep your heart functioning in a healthy way so no matter who you are, you should be taking in lots of folic acid to keep your heart healthy, Along with that, folic acid also helps combat colon and cervix cancer. After that, the next ingredient we have is beet. Beets are very high in immune-boosting vitamin C, fiber, and essential minerals. They also contain manganese and vitamin B folate. So even though you do not eat beets, like me, it is good to at least have them once in a while because they are great for your immune system. The next ingredient is sweet potatoes which are supposed to be very good sources source for vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, copper, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6. I personally do not like sweet potatoes because I feel as if they are ruining the vegetable by them being sweet. Though, if you are into the current trends, you must know that many people are starting to consume sweet potatoes because of their great health benefits. The last ingredient for this juice is carrots. Carrots contain a lot of beta-carotene and fiber content. Beta-carotene also converts into vitamin A which is very important for eye health and good vision. So make sure to have yourself a carrot here and there. 

This juice is something I never would have tried if I hadn’t gotten into  making green juices. It did taste kind of weird, but it was not as bad as I had thought it would be.The consistency was not my favorite and I probably would never make it again. But, I do recommend you to try it, maybe you’ll like it more than I did.

What’s the weirdest juice you’ve ever tried?

Manheim, Jason. The Healthy Green Drink Diet. New York, Skyhorse, 2012.