pasta alla norma

I'm trying to eat more purples.

So I made pasta alla norma.

in january

In January, I made a blue cheese and caramelized onion gallette from A Year of Pies. 

And a pot pie stew and sweet potato biscuits from Appetite for Reduction.

I also discovered some new blogs. The first is A Sweet Spoonful, which I heard about from Eating From the Ground Up and Orangette. The blogger, Megan Gordon, from A Sweet Spoonful recently released a cookbook called Whole Grain Mornings. I haven't flipped through the cookbook, but I've been perusing Gordon's blog. I like her writing style and her stories, and I like her emphasis on whole grains. I made steel cut oats with a blueberry compote (her recipe calls for cranberries, but I didn't have any one hand).

. 

I also stumbled upon The Chubby Vegetarian. I made a veggie meatloaf

and veggie meatballs

and a barbeque eggplant sandwich with caesar cole slaw.

I've also been reading The Kitchn and Food52 and my name is yeh.

eggplant parmesan

There are pretty much only 2 ways I eat eggplant: eggplant parmesan and baba ganoush.  And I don't make either one of them- Drew does.  I think I made eggplant parmesan once, but I failed pretty miserably because you need to use quite a bit of oil when you fry the eggplant and I just don't like doing that.  

Eggplant parmesan is one of Drew's family favorites, and we've got cooking it down to a science.  Drew takes care of the eggplant, while I make the accompanying pasta and usually a salad.  Sometimes we make our own marinara sauce, but last night we copped out and used the jarred kind.  

Drew slices the eggplant (we don't bother with salting it first to remove the moisture) and coats each slice in an egg and milk mixture and then in seasoned bread crumbs.  Then he fries the slices on the griddle, insisting that this requires quite a bit of oil, so I just turn my head and refuse to look.  After he finishes frying the eggplant, he drains the slices and then places them on a baking sheet so I can smother each one in marinara sauce and a slice of mozzarella.  The finishing touch is a sprinkle of garlic powder before going into the oven for about 15 minutes.