Grilled Eggplant and Goat Cheese Salad

This is an easy and simple recipe that is also amazing. Just the thing for my favorite ladies on the go.

Ingredients:

- 7 Japanese Eggplants, ends trimmed, cut into one inch circles

- 3 tablespoons olive oil

- 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves

- 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the Eggplant:

Place a grill pan over medium-high heat or preheat gas or charcoal grill.

Place the eggplant slices on a sheet or in a large bowl and drizzle with the olive oil; toss to coat with the oil.

Grill the eggplant slices until tender and grill marks appear, 3 to 4 minutes per side.

Once the Eggplant is done:

Place the eggplant slices side-by-side on a serving platter.

Sprinkle with the pine nuts, goat cheese, basil, and mint.

Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

This recipe (like so many of mine) comes from Giada de Laurentiis.

Hope you are both well!

HB

30 Things to do in 30 Days

I have 30 days remaining before 3+ years of grad school. I plan on enjoying them. I still have 5 more to fill in. Suggestions are welcome.

1. Trip to Montreal
2. Remove Absolut Ads
3. Visit beach
4. Take a day class - sewing, pottery.
5. Go hiking
6. Dinner & beer with Tim
7. 1x/week yoga in Florence
8. 1x/week yoga at Heart Song
9. knit baby hats
10. make apron
11. wall pockets
12. find apartment
13. learn to say hello in 60 languages
14. Eat Greek food
15. Horseback ride
16. Trip to NYC
17. Cut grass under fence
18. Fix bike & bike ride
19. Make avocado pesto linguine
20. Rock wall
21. Roast marshmallows/make s'mores
22. Make ice cream
23. Make & put up garden signs
24. Watch the shining
25. Make plastic bag holder
26. Make strawberry rhubarb pie
27.
28.
29.
30.

Avocado Pesto Linguine

Serves 4
Prep: 10 min
Cook: 10 min

Ingredients
400 g dried linguine pasta
2 ripe Hass Avocados
2 cloves garlic
juice 1/2 lemon
20 g fresh flat leaf parsley
80 g fresh basil
1 red chili, deseeded and chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
50 g grated hard cheese (parm or castelli)
25g toasted pine nuts

Directions
1. Cook pasta, partially drain, leaving about 3 tablespoons of cooking liquie. Cover to keep pasta warm

2. Make pesto: cut and peel avocado, slice into 8 wedges. Place avocado, garlic, lemon juice, herbs, chili, olive oil, and half of cheese in blender. Blend until smooth.

3. Stir pesto into pasta. Divide into 4 bowls. Serve immediately, sprinkle with remaining cheese pine nuts, and freshly-ground black pepper.

Bon Appetite
NP

Nettles!!

Now that these lovely plants are abundant but still pretty young, it's the perfect time to use them! I was playing around with a bunch I picked earlier today and came up with a pretty awesome recipe (plus you're making nettle tea at the same time!). As you probably know by now, I don't do measurements... but here are the ingredients and steps.

• fresh nettles
• rice pasta (or any pasta)
• extra virgin coconut oil
• rice milk (or any nut milk, regular milk would work too)
• (optional: eggs)
• extra virgin olive oil
• fresh basil
• spices (I used salt, pepper and lots of cayenne)
• love (add liberally)

1. Pick newest shoots from nettles (using gloves) and rinse.

2. Blanch the nettles in some boiling water and set aside. Save the water (nettle tea) and drink at another time.

3. Cook the pasta and drain.

4. Place cooked pasta, nettles, coconut oil and some milk in pot on medium heat until the coconut oil is fully melted.

5. Add spices and if you're adding eggs, add them now and stir into the pasta (I didn't leave them in long because I don't like to cook my eggs too much, but leave for as long as feels right to you).

6. Remove from heat, add olive oil and mix.

7. Add freshly torn basil leaves and serve with love and candles.

With the eggs, it's kind of got this spinach and ricotta pasta taste but better (thanks to the nettles). Without the eggs, it's really good too though.

CJO

Yummy pasta dish

Hi lovelies!

It's been so windy and rainy lately and I've been playing more with my stove. I've made this dish twice (or variations of the same thing) and fell in love with it both times :-)

As you've probably guessed, I don't really do measurements when I'm creating so I've just got ingredients and directions... enjoy!

(by the way, feel free to play around with the veggies/spices and obviously if you don't have a problem with wheat/gluten normal pasta would be fine too)

Ingredients (in order of use):

• Rice pasta
• Coconut oil (organic extra virgin)
• Garlic/spring onions/onions (I used garlic once, spring onions once... a combination of these and/or normal onions and maybe even some celery woul be nice)
• spinach/peas/other veggies (I used spinach once, spinach and peas the other time, asparagus would be a really nice addition, some mushrooms would be nice too... whatever you've got in the fridge)
• dulse (sea vegetable)
• rice dream milk (other non-dairy milks including homemade nut mylks would be good too, I just happened to have rice dream on hand)
• spices (e.g. cayenne, black pepper, whatever you desire!)
• olive oil (organic extra virgin)
• Love

Directions:

1. Cook pasta as usual (you can add some veggie broth too if you've got some), drain and set aside in colander

2. Reduce heat, then in pot used to cook pasta, add coconut oil and allow to melt

3. Add garlic/onions/spring onions and saute for a couple minutes

4. Add other veggies and allow to cook down to whatever consistency you like (I just barely wilt the spinach)

5. Break up the dulse into small pieces (whatever size you like) and add to pot

6. Add pasta back into the pot and stir through

7. Add a little rice dream, stir through, repeat as often as you like -- this gives it a nice creamy consistency. If you add too much, just allow it to reduce down again.

8. Remove from heat, add spices to taste and a little bit of olive oil, stir through and serve with love, candles and good music :-)

CJO