With that in mind, we're going to be purchasing some heirloom seeds from catalogs this year to plant next spring. Hopefully, we'll be able to have an extensive garden so that we can keep even more seeds. We might not even have to buy anymore seeds next winter, unless a certain vegetable interests us and we don't have seeds of it.
Today was a tiring day. I volunteer at a medical office most of the day on either Mondays or Tuesdays. It always feels good to accomplish many tasks during the day, but it does get tiresome, especially when I am staring at piles of paperwork all day. An interesting conversation took place in the break room, though. One lady commented how she used to live in a 600 sq. ft. house. A coworker replied that that wasn't a "house," it was an "apartment." In other words, that 600 sq. ft. house was just too small! Now, I know people have all different types of opinions, but this is just mine. I would love to live in a 600 sq. ft. house. In fact, that's what my fiance and I are planning to build in Tennessee. Once we buy land there, we'll build a little cabin and expand it as our family grows. I think it would be neat to live in a cabin and not have to clean a 2,500 sq. ft. house. Not to mention, all the savings in heating! Anyway, I just thought that what that lady said was intriguing, and it says a lot about how many people think about their "spaces" nowadays.
I'm going to post how I made tonight's dinner, eggplant parmigiana. This is perhaps my favorite way to cook eggplant, and I can get my fiance to eat it, too. I'll put up a basic recipe on the "Never-fail Recipes" page, but I'll post the instructions here because I took some pictures to illustrate the process.
This is the type of eggplant I like to use for eggplant parmigiana. Choose ones that aren't too young or old. Look at the skin and its smoothness. Sometimes, you can't tell even when the skin is shiny and smooth...at least that's what happened to me this time. I peeled them and sliced them as thin as I could, and I found large seeds. So, I tried to take out most of the seeds.
At the far left top corner is my kelp "salt." It's basically ground kelp, and it tastes like the sea. There's a bowl of flour (King Arthur and my own milled), two beaten eggs (salted), and my plate of sliced eggplant, also salted. I salt the eggplant slices so that some water is drawn out. You can then pat the slices dry with a paper towel.
Dip the slices in the egg first, then the flour, then fry in hot oil. Because eggplant soaks up way too much oil, I recommend not putting too much oil in the pan. Basically, I pan-seared the slices.
It looks like a pan of enchiladas, but this really is my version of eggplant parmigiana, at least today's. I usually use Monterey Jack cheese because it's mild-flavored, but we only have cheddar cheese. I've also made my own pasta sauce before, but I used store-bought tomato sauce this time. Layer the dish as follows: a little bit of sauce first so that the slices don't stick to the bottom of the pan, then the fried eggplant slices, then sauce, then cheese, then the eggplant slices....You can add herbs once you've put the tomato sauce layer on, herbs such as dried thyme, rosemary, oregano, and basil.
Bake the eggplant parmigiana at 350 degrees F for approximately 30 minutes.
I like eating this dish the next day because the eggplant slices get a chance to soak in all of that tomato sauce. This is why I love making and eating this dish. Even though it is frustrating that the eggplant will suck up all the oil (or even water) that's available to it, it will also suck up the flavors and juices of the tomato sauce. In general, the more layers you've got, the better!
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