Salata de Vinete (Romanian Eggplant Salad) Recipe

     

     We've been really pleased with the availability of fresh produce since we've been in Germany, and the prices are reasonable.  After two years of having to adapt some of our family's favorite recipes to fit what was available/inexpensive in Korea, we have been able to include more fresh ingredients while we've been here! 

Here's one of my husband's favorites.  He's from Romania, and I've tried my hand at making some of the dishes that he loves.  It's been a hit with our kids, and my side of the family, too.  

*Before I begin, I want to let you know that all items are chopped-by-hand, not only because it's soothing to me, but because I'd rather not use my food processor on a transformer unless I absolutely have to.  If you prefer a smoother texture, the food processor is the way to go!

SALATA DE VINETE 

(ROMANIAN EGGPLANT SALAD) 

RECIPE 

Yields: approx. 4 cups

Time: 24 hours (to include refrigeration to drain eggplant)

Active cooking time: 2 1/2 hours

Ingredients:

4 large eggplant (aubergine)

1 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 yellow or white onion, finely minced
4 Tbs. real mayonnaise
1/4-1/2 tsp. kosher salt (to taste)

Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 400°f (200°c)

2.  Prepare eggplant for roasting:  Rinse thoroughly and dry.  Place on cookie sheet/hotel pan. With fork, pierce skin several times.  Drizzle olive oil on skin of all eggplant, and rub to coat evenly.

3.  Roast eggplant, turning every 20 minutes, until extremely soft, approximately 2 hours depending on eggplant size.

4.  Take out of oven and allow to cool on cookie sheet until you are able to handle safely without burning yourself.

5.  One-by-one, on cutting board, cut open eggplant, and scrape out insides.  Place eggplant insides in colander over bowl (or wire sieve over bowl) to drain.  Sprinkle lightly with kosher salt (1/8 tsp.) to aid in draining.

6.  Place bowl in refrigerator, and chill AT LEAST 12-hours, to ensure proper drainage.  It can drain up to 24-hours, if needed.

7.  Remove bowl from refrigerator, and turn colander/sieve on cutting board.  Dispose of drained liquid.

8.  Roughly chop eggplant until smooth.  Place in bowl (glass with a tight-fitting lid is preferred, but any bowl with a lid will do.)

9.  Finely mince onion, and add to eggplant.

10.  Add mayonnaise, salt, and pepper to bowl.  Mix until thoroughly combined.  Serve immediately on french bread or crackers.  The salad can also be used as a dip for fresh vegetables, or on a sandwich. The salad will be even more tasty if you refrigerate at least one hour, but we can hardly wait that long!!

11.  Interrupt your resident Romanian taste-tester while he is scraping the tinting off your car windows to make sure it tastes as it should 😃

It passed the test!!  

Thank you for joining me for this recipe

Tomorrow will be the first recipe from Food Network Magazine, and I can't wait to share it with you!

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Happy Eating!!

Before I Begin

I decided to take time to organize myself before I launch into this project.  

At breakfast today, I decided to go through my recipe binder, and remove all the recipes that don't fit the project intent, meaning I took out all the recipes that I didn't obtain from Food Network Magazine.  

I won't lie-I was a bit overwhelmed, looking at all the recipes that I have, all the recipes I removed, and wondering, "What have I gotten myself into?"  But, every journey begins with a single step and all that, so here we go!

I have a lot of recipes that at one time were organized in the binder, but I use them so often that they hadn't made their way back into the page protectors: Thanksgiving "tried-and-true" recipes, traditional Christmas recipes (Cozonac, cinnamon rolls, and multigrain breakfast porridge-all wonderful holiday treats), and family favorites that are in rough shape:

I also had recipes that had been hand-written by family members years ago:

And, those that bring tears to my eyes, because the writer is no longer on this Earth:

After cleaning out the binder, I feel a lot better, and feel more ready to get started.

As overwhelmed as I felt this morning, I know that this will be a fun project (probably much more when I don't have a house full of stuff in boxes crying to be put away), but it will also be a project of my heart: coming back to a place of doing what I love, and taking care of the people that I love.  

I'm excited to be on this journey with you!  

My first recipe will be posted 29 August, 2017

Greek-Inspired Chicken Gyros

Hello!

Welcome to my first recipe!

  You may ask if this came from Food Network Magazine.  It didn't, and I will tell you why:  we moved to Germany about 3 1/2 weeks ago, and are still living in temporary lodging, meaning I don't have my recipe binder, I don't have my usual cooking utensils, implements, or spices.  We are eating very simple meals.  But, simple doesn't mean that you sacrifice taste, and I always enjoy coming up with new recipes, so here you go!

I'll apologize now that I don't have pictures of this terribly delicious, want-to-have-again dish that I made up for dinner the other day.

Greek-Inspired Chicken Gyros 

20-minute prep

Serves 4

                                                        

For the Tzatziki sauce:

1/2 large English cucumber, peeled and finely minced

2 TBS. fresh dill, minced

1/4 tsp. Kosher salt

1/8 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1 clove garlic, minced, or substitute 1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 cup full-fat plain Greek yogurt, or sour cream can be substituted

In small bowl, add yogurt, cucumber, dill, garlic, and seasonings, and stir together to combine.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

For the chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Kosher salt

Pepper

1 TBS olive oil

1/2 TBS fresh dill, minced

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Juice of 1/4 lime

Over medium heat in a medium skillet, heat olive oil until hot, but not smoking.  While oil is heating, season chicken breast with a sprinkle of Kosher salt and black pepper.  Add chicken to pan, and sauté, 10 minutes, turning halfway-through, until lightly browned.  Transfer chicken to cutting board, and slice into small chunks.  Transfer to serving bowl.  Add dill, garlic powder, and lime to season, and stir to coat evenly.

Accoutrements:

Salad greens

1 bell pepper, any color, seeded and chopped

1/2 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1/2 English cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly

1 large tomato, chopped

Feta cheese crumbles, or marinated Feta, if you can find it 

Flour tortilla boats (I saw these for the first time!), OR flour tortillas, OR pita bread

To assemble gyros, place tortilla boat (tortilla or pita bread) on plate.  Spoon in chicken, and top with salad greens, bell pepper, onion, cucumber, tomato, Feta cheese, and Tzatziki sauce.

Serve with rice (I did Rice-a-Roni rice pilaf) and side-salad, if you enjoy vegetables as much as my family does.

**I believe that you could have great leftovers with this, but we snorked it all, so I'll be doubling the recipe next time

Enjoy!

_________________________________________________________________________________

I look forward to coming up with more recipes to post here, and expect that they will be "TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility) approved, and Jamie-originals, until we receive our household goods.

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome, Friends!

Welcome to my blog, Katze in the Küche!

We are all friends here: friends who like to try new recipes, and friends who like to eat!

I love this quote from Julia Child:

"People who love to eat are always the best people"

My name is Jamie.  I love to eat. :-)  

The reason I started this blog is that I have subscribed to Food Network Magazine for YEARS!  I love reading the magazine, cutting out the recipes that sound like something I would like to make, and organizing them in a binder for future use.  

Future use has arrived.

For the past two years, I have had a job.  One that I loved, and that was in addition to the job that I already had, which was a stay-at-home-mom and wife.  The job that I had for the past two years could be time-consuming, and took a lot of the joy that I had out of the blog that I started years ago:(www.methinksshethinks.blogspot.com)  This blog was a spot for me to put recipes that I had made up, but also included posts about our travels around South Korea (where we were stationed), and our adventures in Asia.  It was a good blog, but after donning all the hats that I had worn, it didn't have direction, nor a specific topic.  I also started to dislike posting, because after all the computer-work I was doing every day, I didn't want to be on the computer any more!

So, as we moved away from South Korea, not even a month ago, I was cleaning out cabinets to get ready for packers, and found my recipe binder.  I took a few minutes to page through, and realized that I had a TON of recipes that I had cut out, but never tried.  Then, I had the idea of a new blog.  One that is dedicated to cooking, but not just cooking.  Cooking the recipes that caught my eye in Food Network Magazine, but also posting my results, and what I would do to change the recipe if it didn't turn out.

I'm not a star chef.  I'll say that now.  I love cooking, and am in my happy place when I am making dinner for my family, chopping ingredients, sipping a beer, with good tunes on the speaker.  

I make up a lot of the recipes that I could on a day-to-day basis, with the knowledge that I have about what works together.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay.  Another way I love to cook is to re-imagine leftovers, because as my husband would say, I would rather be lit on fire than eat leftovers.  I think he's a bit overdramatic with that, but don't tell him I said that.

So, I am inviting to you on my culinary adventure, to cook through the recipes that I have cut out.  All recipes will be followed exactly, and my opinions (maybe my husband's, too) will be posted after the results.  I'm excited to have you on this adventure, too, and please let me know if you decide to make the recipes yourself!  

I'm so jazzed that we are now in Germany, and have access to so many fresh ingredients!  If any recipes call for an ingredient that isn't available locally, I will make note of what is substituted or omitted, if I need to do that.

Please Note: Though I am cooking the recipes from Food Network Magazine, my opinions are my own, and do not reflect the opinions of the magazine, and I am not being compensated for my cooking/opinions.

With all that...

WHEN DO WE EAT?