Eggplant Dressing

My Mom was a vegetarian until she married my father. One of her favorite recipes (and mine!) from her vegetarian days was eggplant dressing. It's just like dressing with meat, only subbed with eggplant. I'm the only one in my house that like eggplant so I always get a really small eggplant. It makes just enough for me to have for a meal. Mom, of course, used oil to cook her eggplant but I use vegetable broth and I think it's a lot better!

Eggplant Dressing

1 small eggplant, peeled and diced

1/4 sweet onion, sliced or diced
vegetable broth
black pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
sea salt, optional
Brown rice, cooked

Line a sauce pot with vegetable broth and place eggplant and onion in pot. Season with a light touch, you want the flavor of the eggplant to come through. Cook on medium until it comes to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and cook until eggplant and onion are tender and taste done. Add a little vegetable broth as needed to ensure eggplant stays nice and moist.

Mix into rice (as a dressing) or serve over rice. I use Lundgren's Wild Rice Blend (that's what the black bits are in the photo). This is also really good on pasta!

Add salt to each individual serving, if desired.

Pasta Primavera

Everyone I know eats meat. So when our daughter and her fiancé come over we usually grill. Bob grills hamburgers for everyone else and either portobello burgers or bean burgers for me. Last night I didn't feel like burgers so I said I would make some pasta primavera. I was pretty intimidated since her fiancé is a chef. Oh, and have I mentioned that I don't really have a recipe for this? Ugh! So I just started grabbing everything I could think of that I've had in primavera sauces in restaurants and started chopping! He couldn't see how I was going to get a rich enough sauce without using butter. Not only did he like the sauce, but he got seconds! He never guessed my secret for a thick, rich sauce either, I had to tell him! It's the chopped mushrooms! They almost melt into the sauce making it thick and rich!

Pasta Primavera

1 yellow squash, cut up
1 zucchini, cut up
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 orange bell pepper, cut up
Oregano
Basil
Vegetable broth
4-5 oz crimini mushrooms, rinsed
2 jars pasta sauce
1 pkg whole wheat linguine, cooked

Place all vegetables except mushrooms in a Dutch oven. Add seasonings to taste. Cook on medium heat, add about 1/4 cup vegetable broth. Cover and cook until vegetables start to get soft, adding a little broth if needed.

Put mushrooms in a food processor fitted with an "s" blade and process until the mushrooms are the size and texture of ground beef. Add the mushrooms to the vegetables and stir. Add the pasta sauce, cover and cook on medium heat. When the sauce comes to a boil, lower fire and simmer until vegetables are soft (to taste) and flavors have blended.

Serve over linguine pasta.

Tip: Save the mushroom stems in a freezer bag and use it to make stock when the bag is full!

Fig Preserves

When I was a kid, I helped my Mom pick figs. Oh.My.Gosh...the itching! I always looked forward to the preserves Mom would make, but geez, I hated picking those things! Bob and I just got home from our vacation in Louisiana to see my family. My sister gave me two gallon bags full of frozen figs! I was going to just cook a little at a time but by the time we got home, they were half defrosted. So I put them in the fridge and let them finish defrosting. So this morning I took both bags and dumped them into a pot and started cooking. There was about 2 cups worth of juice in the bags with the figs.  I used a lot less sugar than my sister and my sugar is also vegan. Ohhhhhh! It tastes so good!!!

Fig Preserves

2 gallons ripe figs
Water (if no juice from figs), about 2 cups
2 cups vegan cane sugar

Put figs into Dutch oven, add water (if needed) and sugar and stir. Cook, uncovered, on high heat until it comes to a boil. Lower heat to medium and let cook, uncovered, until figs are cooked and juice is thick. Add water a little at a time if necessary to keep figs from drying out. You need liquid to thicken. When figs are done, smash with a potato masher until preserves are chunky but there are no whole figs left.