Eggplant

I cannot find seeds for my beloved Lavendar Touch eggplant anymore, so am trying two new varieties, Fairy Tale and Comet.   I have not tasted either yet.  However, though beautiful, Fairy Tale might prove to be a disappointment.  All my fault, I did not read fully the plant description.  These fruits are slender, but only 4-5 inches long, max! They are going to be a pain to use, especially as a member of my household does not like eggplant skin (small, tender eggplant do not have to be peeled before cooking).  Well, at least I can draw them!

Happy gardening!

A Recipe: Eggplant Sauce

SCORE!  I finally fond something great to do with the bouty of eggplant I am experiencing: eggplant sauce!  Like tomato-based pasta sauces, but easier to make!  It is incredibly yummy and can be used on said pasta, is a great sauce for pizza or for aything that needs a kick-in-the-pants regarding flavor.  And here is the recipe"

Ingredients
4-5T olive oil
4 to 6 slender (or a dozen of the super skinny) eggplant, or maybe 2 large eggplant, peeled and cut into chunks or thick slices.
2 onions, cut into wedges
6- 8 medium tomatoes, also cut into wedges
1 head of garlic (a full head, not just a clove)
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt to sprinkle (I like large grain salt) and to taste
1T lemon juice
Grated black pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the top off the garlic, place in tin foil, drizzle 1 t olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.  Fully wrap the garlic head in the foil, and place it in the oven in a small baking pan or atop the cookie sheets (see next). Toss the veggies in a few T. of olive oil and 1/2 t salt. Spread these veggies one layer thick on cookie sheets that have been covered in baking parchment. Bake the veggies until soft; about 30 minutes.

Next. put the veggies (and all the juice they exude) into a food processor or blender.  Include the garlic, after you squeeze each clove out of its "paper" wrapper.  Add the  basil, ground pepper, lemon juice and parmesan cheese.  Pulse until pureed. Taste and add salt if desired.  Enjoy!
Variations:  you can roast a red pepper or two along with the veggies. The sauce can be frozen. You can add chopped raw tomatoes, dried tomatoes, avocado, green onions, chopped olives just before serving.  Serve the sauce atop the fish or carbo (including pizza crust) of your choice!
Happy eating!

October Eggplants

Certain there would be few eggplants in the garden after the dozen I picked about 10 days ago, I went out to do some chores and check the plants for the last, remaining, little baby eggplants. It has been chilly, after all, and eggplant is a heat-loving plant. I picked 14 good sized ones instead! Folks, I have said this before and I will say it again now, I will always grow Lavender Touch eggplant. It is sturdy, easily outgrows flea beetle damage, and produces tasty fruits and lots of them!
Happy gardening!

Last eggplant harvest?

It is starting to feel like autumn around here, with lows in the 50's (and 40's!) and highs in the 60's. I went out yesterday and picked all the green tomatoes on the vines, save ones that were cracked or damaged. Why? Well, I have not had much luck with tomatoes ripening on the vine in September (maybe you have) and the plants are looking bad- tired, spent, diseased and it is time for them to go. I will ripen the tomatoes inside- they will never develop the transcendent taste of a tomato ripened on the vine and still warm from the sun, but they will do for cooking. I also make fried green tomatoes as a treat and use them in sandwiches and as topping 0n homemade pizza (really, it is very good). And here is my recipe:
Fried Green Tomatoes
2 or 3 green tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 egg, scrambled
1/2 cup cornmeal or so
1/2 t salt
good sized grating of black pepper
1/2 t garlic powder
2-3 t oil

Heat oil in skillet, until hot, not smoking. Mix cornmeal, salt, pepper and garlic powder and put on a plate. Dip each slice of tomato into egg, then in cornmeal mixture. Fry till golden each side, about 3-4 minutes a side (depending on pan heat-tomatoes should sizzle lightly when you add them to the pan). Remove and drain on a folded paper towel.

Fried green tomato pizza: top pizza crust with red/tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella (variation: cheddar) and fried green tomatoes. Bake as usual. YUM

But what does that have to do with the eggplant photo? This is today's harvest of eggplants, the last, except for many a few baby ones. I have been asked what can you do with eggplants to preserve them? There are eggplant spread and pickle recipes, but I think the easiest thing to do is to roast them for 40 minutes or until soft, in a 375 degree oven. Simply slice them in half, lay them cut side down on an oiled baking dish, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. The resulting roasted flesh is scraped from the skins (though some just keep them intact) and frozen to use in baba ganooj or, my favorite Indian dish, bhaigan barta. You can also make a sauce of sauteed onions, garlic, herbs, tomatoes and roasted eggplant for pasta, pizza or rice. Another yum! Raw eggplant does not freeze well-you can dehydrate it raw to add to soups and stews, but I find the result less than satisfactory.

Listen to my podcast on "putting the summer garden to bed" on itunes or at: http://virginiaorganicgardener.podbean.com/

Happy gardening! And eating!

Lavender Touch Eggplant

I have grown many varieties of eggplant- the standard black beauty, Ichiban Asian, green ad white, but none have been as productive as Lavender Touch eggplant (I got the seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds at www.superseeds.com though I am sure other companies carry them). Sometimes eggplant can be difficult to grow- you have to wait until it really warms up to plant them, about 2 weeks after the last frost date. They can be plagued by flea beetles if not grown under cover until they are big enough to outgrow the beetle damage. They are relatively heavy feeders. But this particular eggplant, aside from being lovely and tasty, is very productive in my central VA garden. This year my efforts to grow it under cover were foiled by my dog and many birds who tore at the floating row cover and the plants still took off and are pumping out fruit even in this hot weather!
Eggplants can be roasted and preserved for winter eating in baba ganooj (that tasty eggplant spread often on mezze plates) or Indian and Asian dishes that require roasted eggplant. Simply wash and top the eggplant, dry it, place in a roasting pan that has been brushed with olive oil. Brush the skin of the eggplants with more olive oil and sprinkle with some salt (I use large grain sea salt). Roast in a 350 degree oven for 45 mins, allow to cool, scrape out and freeze the flesh. Yum!
Happy gardening (and eating!)

Eggplant Eggplant!

Eggplant (and a little organic philosophy thrown in)
The time of year I write this (September) is not the time to plant eggplant, but it is the time to enjoy those wonderful vegetables (a botanical fruit) before we lose the plants to frost. I go through phases with my devotion to particular vegetables, but my current love is eggplant. Some of the advice I am going to give here can apply to other plants in this genus (solanum), such as tomatoes and peppers, and eggplants should also be grown in rotation with them (and potatoes) in an organic garden. (I will write an entry on rotation soon). Eggplants come in a variety of colors and shapes, from little round white ones to narrow green ones, to narrow lavender to the large, deep purple globe eggplants we see in the stores (though it is more of a tear drop shape than a globe). I have posted a photo of some of my end-of-season (read “a little battle scarred from bugs, but still delicious”) eggplants. I tried two new varieties this year, the green and the white, as my local garden center first ran out of the traditional purple ones (and the seeds I had started failed this year). As I wrote, eggplants can be lavender, purple or striped and are lovely in and out of the garden.

Eggplants love hot weather and a typical mistake is to set them out too early in the spring. If I do have an urge to set them out earlier than mid-May, I make sure I use a dark mulch (landscape fabric) and cover them with floating row covers, which increase heat. The row covers are also important to help combat flea beetles. Flew beetles (tiny black beetles) are the worst pest on eggplant I have here in central Virginia (and I had them as a problem when I lived in the mid-west too). One day your eggplant looks fine, the next day the leaves are riddled with tiny holes. Flea beetles seem to multiply fast and can destroy small, young seedlings quickly. The row covers keep the beetles off the plant until it is big enough to survive and produce fruit in spite of the bugs. Remember, part of the philosophy of organic gardening is to figure out the least problematic way to defeat or control a pest. Control is a key word here- I don’t kill all the flea beetles (though you can learn how to mash them between thumb and plant leaf before they jump-like their namesake, fleas, they are good jumpers-but mashing them to get good control them is a twice per day activity) (rotation, mentioned earlier is another way to control pests). I use lengths of an old garden hose, stick unto the ground with sticks inside to hold them up to support the row cover, and I weigh it down with rocks or bricks. It is very effective at control. I also use cutworm collars around the base of newly planted eggplants (cardboard toilet paper tubes, pressed into the soil) to stop cutworms from wrapping around the base of the plant and snipping it off near the ground (I use this for other transplants too).

In my experience, eggplants like rich soil, full sun and lots of water, but with good drainage. At the time they begin to flower, remove the row covers (and save it for next year- it isn’t cheap and can be patched to last a few more seasons) and let the pollination begin. I fertilize a few times each season with liquid fish emulsion and vermicompost or compost tea.

Eggplants are best young, before they have gotten bitter, seedy or woody. Some old time recipes recommend you soak your peeled and sliced eggplant in salt water to draw out the bitterness, but this is unnecessary with young eggplant. I love eggplant oven roasted with garlic and a sprinkle of sea salt, sautéed with tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and fresh herbs over pasta and in baba ganooj.

Any questions? J