After visiting the farm, I brought home deep purple eggplants, yellow squash, dozens of tomatoes, chiles, green and red bell peppers and bitter kale that never seems to stop growing. I decided I'd first make something fairly easy and settled with a quiche and corn-tomato salad with my tomato abundance.
Quiche:
I still had eggs from before I left for the bay, and there were some onions in the house. I started out with the Japanese eggplant, which I sliced thinly, lengthwise and lied out on a baking sheet. I added 3 whole cloves of garlic, still in their skin and sprinkled on some olive oil, fresh rosemary that I had picked from the farm, and a bit of salt. I then took a squash that I had found at the farm the previous week, a big round one with jagged edges, shaped like an umbrella, and, according to google, called a 'patty pan'. I did a rough chop on the patty pan and added it to the eggplant, somewhat last minute- next time I will add them at the same time to make sure they're all evenly coated in oil and rosemary and put that into the oven at 350 degrees to bake.
Meanwhile, I sauteed a couple of cloves of garlic in oil, added a little bit of crushed red pepper, something I ALWAYS have on hand in my kitchen. After 30 seconds or so, when the garlic starting emanating its luscious scent, I added thinly sliced onions, about half an onion in total. I sprinkled that with salt- I've been told numerous times to always sprinkle onions with salt so that they will release their juices, and flavor into the pan. After the onions became translucent and quite soft, maybe 5 minutes or so, I added sliced and quartered yellow courgette squash. I let that cook for only about 5 minutes; I like to still have a bite to the courgettes.
After the squash and onions were finished, I started to get the filling ready. I whisked together the last 4 eggs of the dozen, added a dash of salt and pepper to taste, some fresh rosemary and about 1/4 cup of asiago, as the gruyère that I had originally intended to buy was way out of my price range.
After 20 minutes, the eggplant looked good and tasted tender. I took it out to cool and added the courgette and onion mix to the eggs. With the oven free, I put the chilled crust I had made earlier that day into the oven for about 10 minutes, which turned out not to be long enough. (see crust recipe in separate section). After baking the crust, (next time I will bake it until the edges are a light golden brown), I added the courgette/onion/egg mix to the crust, then added the baked patty pan squash and de-skinned garlic cloves to any open spaces. I laid the eggplant strips flat on top, arranging them to make a perfect top layer.
The quiche baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until set in the center.
Ingredients:
1 quiche crust
4 eggs
1/4 cup shredded or grated cheese, I prefer gruyère, but anything salty and somewhat firm works
3-4 Japanese eggplants, thinly sliced lengthwise
1/2 yellow courgette squash, sliced and quartered
1/2 patty pan squash, de-seeded and chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper
fresh rosemary
Corn and Tomato Salad
Growing up in New Jersey, I've come to absolutely love sweet summer corn. I prefer it grilled with a little bit of char on the outside, but seeing as I'm without a grill here in California and often without patience, I've been eating sweet corn raw, which I cannot complain one bit about. It also happened to be only $0.19 per ear in the store so went ahead and bought 5.
The tomatoes, like I said, came from the farm. I am not sure what type they are, but they are absolutely delicious. I hated tomatoes as a child, but started liking them as I got a bit older, especially summer New Jersey tomatoes, either from my own garden at home or farm a nearby neighborhood farm. With fresh mozzarella or burratta, I cannot keep my hands off of tomatoes, but tonight they were going with the corn.
I chopped up 5 medium-sized tomatoes, shucked the corn off of 3 stalks and added it into a big bowl. Alongside that, I chopped up 2 cloves of garlic, juiced 1 lime and added salt and pepper to taste. I added a pinch of cumin at the end for an extra bite- my new favorite spice that I now add to just about everything I cook (except Italian).
Ingredients:
3 ears of corn, husked and shucked
5 medium tomatoes, chopped
2-3 cloves raw garlic, minced
1 lime, juiced
salt and pepper, to taste
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