Melanzana e Dolce: Eggplant and Dessert

Several months ago, when we were in Italy, I was impressed by the wonderful food. (as is everyone that visits Italy). One incredible fact is that we did not put on the the usual 3-5 pounds that most of us put on after traveling. While it is true that we did a lot of walking, we probably ate enough so the we took in more calories than we burned off. As we thought about this situation, we agreed that the secret  may have been the freshness of the ingredients and the manner in which the food was prepared. Fresh vegetables cooked with olive oil and paired with freshly caught seafood is a pretty healthy diet. Many diet experts tell us that the "Mediterranean" diet is beneficial.

One of the foods we enjoyed very much in Italy was melanzana, Italian for eggplant. Whether it was eggplant parmesan, or sauteed eggpllant, we considered this a culinary treat. Fortunately, my husband enjoyed a bumper crop of eggplant in his garden this year. I began to look for various ways to prepare eggplant and found an intriguing recipe called "Ratatouille and Polenta Pie", in local food author Ashley English's book A Year of Pies. This recipe featured eggplant as the main ingredient, but also included garden fresh zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes. These vegetables were chopped, put in a roasting pan and baked for an hour with onions, olive oil, and shallots. (chopped shallots were my addition). The roasted veggies were then placed in a pan over the stove and sauteed with fresh parsley, thyme, oregano, olive oil and red wine. These savory vegetables were placed in a greased deep dish pie plate.

The part of the recipe that makes this a "pie" is the polenta topping. For those who may be unfamiliar, polenta is yellow corn meal, stone ground at either a coarse or medium consistency. I was able to find it at the local grocery Green Life. The corn meal is cooked over the stove with water for about 15 minutes. More thyme and parsley are added to the thickened mixture, along with salt and butter. The polenta is spooned over the vegetable mix and put in the oven to broil for about 8 minutes.

The resulting pie was beautifully browned and had a firm but moist texture. After letting this cool for about 15 minutes, we tasted this fragrant pie, and it was even tastier than I had expected. The roasted vegetable and polenta combination is truly different and delicious. This is an outstanding vegetarian entree, and could easily be the main course without a meat. However, since I also developed a love of prosciutto while I was in Italy, I served a few slices of this with the ratatouille pie.

Since I was on a roll with my cooking that day, I made another pie from English's fun pie book. Feeling in an Italian mood, I decided to try the "Nectarine and Lavender Crostata". Crostata is an Italian pie which has a "fold over" crust, similar looking to a pizza. I used fresh white nectarines (skin stays on), dried lavender flowers, butter, sugar, arrowroot, vanilla, and sea salt. Instead of putting the the rolled out butter crust on a pie plate, it is put onto a baking sheet. The fruit and accompanying ingredients are combined and then spread on the rolled out crust, with a 2 inch diameter of dough which is then folded over the filling. The crostata is  baked for 30 minutes. I actually took the crostata to a gathering with friends, so I only grabbed a small piece, but by all reports, this was a light, pastry like pie. A crostata could be filled with other fruits, like berries and pears.

I loved both of these recipes, and plan to keep going through Ashley English's pie book to try other delicacies. The only downside of my Italian inspired cooking day was that I was totally exhausted by the end of the day!  A friend and I were recently discussing the days when cook books were filled with recipes of casseroles using canned goods and potato chips! It takes a lot more time and effort to make dinners with fresh ingredients, but these meals not only taste better; they are better for us. And you will sleep very well after a full day of cooking!