eggplant time
Bought a couple of those skinny, curvy, light purple eggplants at the local farm stand today, and since they weren't the normal shape and volume to slice for my usual prep of egg dip and breadcrumbs, I decided to just make something up. So I fried some bacon and left about a tablespoon of the grease in the pan, cut off both ends of the rinsed curly eggplant, sliced them in half stem to stern, then in half crosswise (so they'd fit in the pan better) and diced up about a third of a red pepper. Placed eggplant cut side down/skin up in the hot grease, sprinkled the open spaces with the red pepper and let them fry a bit - I dunno, maybe 5 minutes until they were browned when I flipped them on their skins. Then I drizzled a handful of shredded Italian blend cheese over 'em, threw on another handful of rinsed fresh spinach, and topped it off with about 5 cherry tomatoes, also rinsed, then covered to steam the last couple of minutes. When hot and melty I turned onto a plate, added a little ground pepper, ...and then it got a bit messy. I decided it would be way easier to eat if I scraped the pulp out of the skins, so I did. Something of a pain, but still easier to me than bothering to peel the danged things before frying. Katy turned up her nose as she was heading out to work, but it was yummy, yummy, yummy. And you don't have to add any salt 'cuz there's plenty in the bacon fat and cheese!