Well, there were extra eggplants and carrots...

I made two dishes that I have always wanted to make:  a healthier eggplant parmigiana (this just means sans breading to me, as my relatives bread the guts out and deep fat fry the eggplant rounds until their is no taste of eggplant left, sorry for outing you guys!) and a carrot cake from, well, carrots.

Top view of my stacks of goodness.

 I was inspired by my good friend for the eggplant dish, she made it for a vegetarian night and it was pitch perfect. So, after the eggplant paste experiment was done, we had two eggplants just sitting there asking to be parmigianed. That is a verb, correct? To 'parmigiana' something is to cover it in parmesan cheese. I don't know, but, I am went for it. I sliced up those eggplants, patted them dry, salted them, lightly fried them and rested them on paper towels to soak up the excess oil. I started my sauce, simple red sauce which I use either canned plum tomatoes or canned diced tomatoes to start and add any mixture of garlic, herbs, spices and my new favorite ingredient, carrots. I food process the carrots and saute them with any garlic, shallot (which I prefer over onion) and any other bits I mix in. I love the sweetness the carrots lend to balance the acidity of the tomato. I love the idea of adding vegetables for the health of it. I love the way the sauce gets chunkier and turns to more of a ragout, the heartiness of it's appearance is deceptive as you don't feel like you are eating a heavy sauce. Here is the fun part, the stacking, stack those slices up with your sliced fresh mozzerella (yum) alternating all of your slices and sauce.

I made carrot cake on an entirely different day. Carrot cake is a long time favorite, since I figured out that it was not a cake made of only shredded carrots, but, a spicy treat with nuts, raisins and the always fantastic cream cheese frosting. Put cream cheese frosting on everything, it is such a luxury and just too, too tasty.
So, I went about the recipe, shredding carrots, adding the optional raisins and walnuts, and whizzing this lovely batter together. My recipe called for ground cardamom, along with its other spices. I could not find ground cardamom. I did have some whole cardamom. I soaked it in boiling water to soften and then shelled it and tried my very best to crush its interior with my mortar and pestle. It was not encouraging but I tossed it in anyway and hoped for the best. The cake went into the oven and I looked to mixing up the frosting. Scoop the cream cheese out of its package and make sure to lick fingers. Also, watch your boyfriend because he will sneak up on you and spread your cream cheese on toast or just dip in with his finger. I whipped up the frosting and added the best thing ever, vanilla bean. Vanilla bean, it makes it, it always does.

Can you see the tiny black specks of vanilla bean?

 The cake came out and got frosted with no trouble. It was dense, spicy and the cardamom should have been ground but the little soft seeds throughout added such a pow to each mouthful that I can't be sure I won't do that again. They may be the same sort of addition as the raisins and walnuts. The cake somehow seems to tear apart on the fork as you pull the bite from the piece of cake, the shredded carrot is woven into the cake. It is dense, glorious goodness. There really isn't any need to eat that store carrot cake again. It's been good to me in the past but, now I have had the real thing. There is no going back.