Eggplant Excellence
Today, I made Baba Ganouj. I have to admit something before I go any further. While I have eaten a fair amount of eggplant I have never bought or cooked one before today. I did, however, have a pretty good idea of what a ripe eggplant looked at felt like and if the end results mean anything I did a pretty good job picking this one.
I pulled this recipe out of a weight watchers cookbook and it comes in at surprisingly low caloric value since it forgoes the tahini that I found in most other recipes online. I made a few tweaks to the recipe--as I tend to do with most recipes, actually. Here follows my tweaked version:
1 eggplant, approximately 1 pound
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons nonfat plain yogurt
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro [I forwent the chopping since it was going in the food processor anyway]
1 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
2 cloves garlic, smashed
Roast the eggplant on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil [sprayed lightly with cooking oil spray] in a 425 degree oven for 45 minutes or so [until soft on the inside and charred on the outside.] If roasting whole, be sure to poke vent holes and turn once or twice during cooking.
Let cool enough to handle then scrape the soft innards of the eggplant into your food processor or blender bowl. Add all other ingredients. Blend until smooth and creamy [you'll see I was left with a fair amount of cilantro flakes, I liked it like this]. Refrigerate until ready to eat, then enjoy with pita bread, pita chips, hearty bread or--our carbohydrate of choice tonight--Wheat Thins chips.
I'm not sure how long it will last in the fridge, but I suspect it won't hang around long enough for us to find out. Weight Watchers called this 4 servings, your mileage may vary.
Gaseous
Tonight I have learned a valuable lesson. While eating a half pound of broccoli doesn't add up to a whole lot of points it does mean that you are likely to end up with a belly that is somewhat distended because of all the gas it churns up. Learn from my experiences folks.
Cultured Milk
I don't like milk. I never have. I think that this has been exacerbated by the fact that cow's milk tastes weird to me. We raised dairy goats when I was a kid and so we had raw goat's milk and only drank cow's milk if we happened to run out. At any rate, I didn't care much for goat's milk either. I always worry that I'm not getting enough calcium, especially while I'm trying to lose weight [since studies show that getting enough low-fat dairy helps with that.] I love yogurt and try to eat that often, but sometimes I'm in a hurry. Tillamook makes yogurt smoothies that are great for this but they're about the cost of 3 containers of yogurt and have roughly twice the sugar. While doing our weekly grocery shopping yesterday I spotted Nancy's Kefir Cultured Milk. At 75 cents it was more expensive than my yogurt and higher in both fat and calories but it seemed much higher on the ease factor. Plus, I'd still get all the benefits of the active cultures. So, this morning I worked out a little bit and then grabbed the carton from the fridge. I shook it, opened it, and smelled it. The smell wasn't great but that didn't deter me. I poured it into a glass and even with vigorous shaking, it remained a bit chunky. I took a small sip and nearly gagged. The taste to me was like the smell from a goat's udder. I took a second sip just in case my first was more a reaction to the smell. Nope, still tasted like the smell of an udder. So, quick and easy not withstanding, I couldn't drink it and we won't be purchasing it again.