On my first visit to Istanbul recently, I saw so many different and delicious ways eggplant can be prepared, it was amazing and inspiring. In this dish I combined some of the flavors of Turkey to create a quick, easy, and vegetarian dish you can enjoy by itself or with grilled lamb or meat. My husband is a big fan of eggplant, and I have to admit, I’m turning into almost as big of a fan as he is.
These days I’ve been creating light dishes that are full of flavor. I had a nice jar of yellow tomato puree, and I wanted to build on its fine and delicate taste, full of Umami. I had several ideas and started cooking in my head – as I always do – while shopping, exercising, or picking up the kids. In fact, most of my recipes start in my head way before I start anything in the kitchen. Once in the kitchen, all these ideas come together and it’s not unusual for a recipe to be created in one session. In this dish, the combination of ginger, herbs, homemade stock, and yellow tomato sauce is so flavorful, you can eat it with any kind of fish or vegetable that you like. I steamed broccoli, spring onions, and carrots alongside oven baked codfish.
With Chili Con Carne you can never go wrong. It’s great as a midnight dish if you’re having a big party e.g. for New Year’s eve, and it’s also one of my kid’s favorite foods. All three of them like it very much, which does not happen often these days. I cook it almost every other week because it’s a good source of nutrition for their weekday meals and very easy and quick to prepare. I love to add cumin and cinnamon because it creates a very nice flavor.
While traveling trough India years ago, I fell in love with Indian food. Back home I started cooking it, and the smell of a freshly prepared curry is unbelievable. I usually cook more meat and fish curries accompanied by side dishes like Saag Paneer (spinach and cheese) or Daal (red lentils). Here I created a delicious chickpea and sweet potato curry, which is a great vegetarian dish and a solid alternative to meat or fish curry.
This summer we spent a week in Tuscany. We like the region a lot, the historic old towns, the landscape, and of course, the good food and wine. At one of the wine farms we had a delicious lunch and wine tasting menu. The primo piatto was homemade pasta with vegetarian sauce – very simple, but full of flavors. Based on this delicious experience, I decided to create my own. The combination of the vegetarian pasta sauce, rosemary, organic pasta, white truffle in olive oil, and freshly grated Parmesan, was a taste explosion in our mouth. Give it a try.
