eggplants. grown and baked

so delightfully glossy

So we've been growing eggplants this season and they look incredible. It's such a healthy plant bearing gorgeous deep dark luminous fruit {or vegetable?}. I have always adored eggplant. Such full voluptuous shape and I like the mystery of the transformation from raw and spongy to the silken roasted flesh of this curious vegetable.

roasted beauties

Again, it was an Ottolenghi recipe that drew me: [http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggplant-with-Buttermilk-Sauce-365110]. This dish is actually gracing the front cover of 'Plenty'. It is very simple to make and the texture is divine. The buttermilk-garlic-yoghurt was great, the garlic is left raw so it adds a nice tangy warmth to the simple sauce. I am not usually one of sauces but this was quite lively and well balanced {and terribly easy to prepare}. I had some left over and mixed it through some lentils with green beans, a little Spanish onion and pommegranate seeds. It is a very versatile sauce, I'm sure I'll be using it more oft.

they really were delicious. and quite fetching visually

There are about 7-8 more little egglets on the way, at the moment they are more {chicken} egg size but they do grow kind of rapidly so I look forward to more meals with them. If anyone has a great recipe using eggplant, please let me know-I usually just slow bake them with thyme or make baba ganoush.

a little baking

One of my friends made a gorgeous cake, her very sweet partner said that it was the Grandfather of all cakes, the First Cake etc so I was inclined to try the recipe out as it was a carrot cake {a type of cake of which I am particularly fond, when done well}.

happily this recipe only called for one carrot's worth of gratings

It was a recipe from Ottolenghi. I have a book of his called 'Plenty,' which is full of delightful recipes. I find he used spices that I don't usually use which is great because it opens up many different flavours. I feel like it's easy to use the same old spices but quite fun to use sumac, za'atar, cumin etc. Anyway this carrot cake---> http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/carrot-cake was pretty darn delicious. It has a really lovely moist crumb with a pleasant crunch to the outer part of the cake. The flavours were warm and rich but not too much. A cake I could probably eat for breakfast. On an indulgent day.


I always struggle to follow a recipe exactly but with this one I made only a few little tweaks. I used ginger and cardamom powder instead of cinnamon and clove, I added a little lime rind to the icing and for the nut topping I used about 20g each of pistachio and walnut {both lightly toasted} and a little sprinkling of dried {edible} rose petals. We had it for a little afternoon treaty with some earl grey. I was very happy with how it all came together. I realise that my favourite cakes are ones that have whipped-into-stiff-peak egg whites folded into the batter for the last step. It seems to give that lovely lightness to the crumb, but then it's also nicely dense. Oh Cake, I adore you.

rose, pistachio and walnut. I like the number three.

lime rind. absolutely worth grating

flowers and cake for afternoon tea

our tame cockatoo. he seemed to be fond of the cake also.