Favorite Eggplant Recipes

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In honor of the new eggplant blossoms coming out in the garden, I thought it would be fun to anticipate the harvest by sharing some of our favorite eggplant recipes from around the web.  I really didn't grow up eating much eggplant, and about the only thing I knew you could make with eggplant was Eggplant Parmesan.  

Well, not particularly favoring that dish, I didn't become friends with eggplants until a few years ago in a delightful restaurant where they made Middle Eastern food.  More on that in a minute, except to say that we did what we always do:  we went home and tried to figure out how to make that amazing food ourselves.

Once we learned that one dish, we decided growing eggplants would be the best way to keep ourselves in a healthy supply.  Then we realized we might need to learn more ways to cook eggplant, since we learned upon our arrival in South Texas that eggplant bushes live for at least a couple of years in this climate, and produce profusely.

Time to experiment again!  Here are a few of our new favorites.  Click each heading to go directly to the recipes.  I hope you enjoy them!

Eggplant Dip (Baba Ghanouj)

Baba Ghanouj is similar to hummus, except made with roasted eggplant instead of garbanzo beans (or another kind of bean).  This is our first-love eggplant recipe, the one we learned to make after eating it in a restaurant.  It sure was convenient for Simply Recipes to post a recipe for it right about that time!  Serve it with things like pita bread, hummus, sliced veges, and a tabouli salad, and you'll have a feast right before your eyes.

Marrakesh Vegetable Curry

I have my amazing husband to thank for finding and making this recipe the other day, when our original eggplant plan wasn't available due to the lack of home-made pita bread in the house (my fault).  He wasn't sure we'd ever had this blend of flavors before, and I think he was right, but oh, how delicious it was!

I love this one all the more because it combines so many rich colors of vegetables--you even get the orange of a sweet potato with the dark leafy greens.  So when there's something delicious AND healthy, I'm pretty excited about it.

Exotic Brinjal (Spicy Eggplant)

Another found-by-husband special, I was taken right from the start with the creamy coconut milk base.  He's gracious enough to scale down the hot peppers for my sake, keeping a good supply of chopped garden peppers beside his plate for good measure.  I wouldn't dare tell you I've heard of every seasoning in this recipe, but it turned out great with the ones we used.

Lentil Eggplant Stew (Vegan, Gluten Free)

And last but not least, a recipe I found in my grandmother's recipe box last summer and made on a drizzly Portland summer afternoon when stew just seemed like the right idea.  Delicious, and comfort food at its best.  We don't have drizzly afternoons in South Texas, but I think it won't be long before I need to imagine one, and make this stew whether the climate cooperates or not!