Stuffed Mini Eggplant with Zucchini and 3 Cheeses

A friend has asked a couple of times to come up with a vegetarian dish. I actually love non meat food so I was looking forward to finding something really yummy. In addition, another person asked for a squash recipe! Okay, I can do this. No prob. As I was strolling through the Minneapolis Farmer's Market I came across these absolutely adorable mini eggplants! I had to get them. Even though I had no idea what to do with them. Snatched them up, yes I did :) Next down the line were these beautiful yellow and green small zucchinis. Summer squash, right there. Oh yah.

Next up was to find a recipe that used one or both of these. I did my faithful google search and found this wonderful recipe that not only used the eggplant and squash, it also called for 3 herbs I had in my garden. Mint, parsley and basil. Cha-ching. Hitting the jackpot now. And seriously, it had 3 cheeses in it. mmm yah.

In this pan slowly simmering and steaming are the chunks of eggplant scooped out from the insides, zucchini, herbs, oil, shallot and garlic. It smelled soooo good!!!!

The instructions did not tell me HOW to steam the eggplant in the pan, so I just figured the best way would be similar to doing big squash in the oven; cut side down. It came out perfect :)

Once the eggplant had softened enough it was time to stuff. Now the item to bake these lil fellas in was tough. I first tried a square baking pan. That didn't work, they fell right over. I just stared in my cupboard and zeroed in on the mini-muffin pan. Wah lah... it worked!!

Covered in tinfoil, baked in the over for 25 minutes, they came out steaming and looking beautiful. Topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, bake into the oven for 5 mn of melting and they are done!

RECIPE
8 mini or japanese eggplants
2 tsp extra virg olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbl fresh basil
2 Tbl minced fresh parsley
2 Tbl fresh mint
1 medium zucchini (about 2 cups) pealed and chopped
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup veggie broth
1/2 cup non fat or part skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 large egg
2 Tbl grated Parmesan cheese

Cut off tops of egg plants and scoop out inside leaving shell for stuffing.

Heat oil in medium sized pan over medium high heat. Add shallot, garlic, basil, parsley and mint. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes. Add zuchhini & eggplant and stir well to blend herbs. Add vegetable broth and turn up heat to medium high until it boils. Cover pan and reduce to medium low and simmer for 15 mn. It needs to be soft enough to mash.

Once veggies have softened, remove from pan with a slotted spoon into a mixing bowl leaving liquids behind.

Place eggplants in pan, cut side down, cover and simmer until soft (NOT MUSHY)for about 10 mn. Turn oven on to °350.

Directions said to spray a square baking pan with non stick spray but they fell over for me. I used a mini muffin pan and it worked great. A regular sized muffin pan would probably work too.

Smash the eggplant/zucchini mixture until somewhat smooth. Add the ricotta, Gruyere cheeses, bread crumbs and egg. Mix well. Stuff each mini eggplant to the top. Cover the baking dish with tinfoil. Pop into the oven for 25 mn. Uncover the foil and top with parmesan cheese. Pop back into oven for 5 mn. until cheese has melted. ENJOY!

Janz Hot Dilly Beans

Really? The last time I posted was SPRING!!! Spring and Summer for me, is all about OUTSIDE! Up North boating, in the backyard by the pool, putzing in the garden, walks through the Park Reserve and just soaking up the warm weather.

When one lives in Minnesota the thought is always in your mind "winter is coming" even on the first day of spring, as the snow is melting, that goes through your mind. "WINTER IS COMING". Given that... it is my only excuse for not posting :)

What gets me back into the kitchen always is the canning of produce. I don't do a lot of canning, maybe some beans, tomatoes, jellies and jams. It's a simple simple thing to do, you feel like you are being "green" and you get to enjoy the summer's treat of produce in the middle of winter. In addition to having a stock of gifts that you can give throughout the year. Low expense gifts....who could resist this?

I was at the Farmer's Market in Minneapolis looking for some summer squash, peppers and tomatoes when I saw green beans. Mountains of green beans. The scent of dill was also heavily in the air. On a whim I picked up about 2.5 lbs of the beans, fresh dill, jalapeno peppers and I was ready to rock the Hot Dilly Beans at home.

Next stop was Fleet Farm to pick up more bottles. I love Fleet Farm, it always surprises me when I walk through... everything you need is at Fleet Farm. That could be a blog topic all on itself so I won't digress.

Of course, I had to reintroduce myself to canning and a recipe for Hot Dilly Beans. I had a wonderful dill pickle recipe from the web, a friend gave me her Dilly Bean recipe and then of course, I had to put my touch on it so the final product is the result of 3 recipes combined. (Recipe listed below)

First up was to clean the beans and cut them the size the need to be to fit into our bottles.

When you do this, just make sure the bean is about 1/4" below the rim of the jar. And you need to stuff them in as tight as they can fit. And no, I do not have Man Hands... my wonderful husband was helping me. :)

While stuff the beans into the jar, add in the dill, peppercorns, garlic and hot peppers. If you do it while stuffing the beans, so it's pressed against the glass, the final product looks so pretty. Especially if you are giving away as gifts.

As the stuffing commences there should be a large pot on your stove top filled with the mixture of water, vinegar and salt heating up. This will be poured into the jar of beans ect. And of course the giant pot of boiling water which will be your hot bath for the jars of beans. Do these two things before you even start cutting, cleaning and stuffing your jars with the beans. It takes awhile to heat up the hot bath.

Slowly lower your jars into the hot bath and it's always wise to have an extra pot of hot water on the side just in case the water does not cover the jars once they are all in.

What always confused me was the instruction... "let the jars sit in the hot bath for 15 mn" What does that mean? Does that mean that when I lower the jars into the boiling water, it should come up to a boil and thats when I start counting the minutes? NOPE. It means, bring that water up to a boil, lower the jars and from there... time it for 15 mn!!

Pull those processed beautiful jars of dilly beans from the water and let sit on your counter until they have cooled down :) Remember, you don't have to put these bad boys in the fridge to store, they can go in your cupboard! The biggest key is to wait 3 days to a week before you give them a try. Don't get impatient and open them up 15 mn after you pulled them from the water. They have to infuse the flavor and marinate until the delishness is ready!

Enjoy!! Eat them all by their lonesome, add them to your Bloody Mary's, chop them up and throw them on your salad. Whatever! Just enjoy :)

Janz Hot Dilly Beans
For the brine:
3 cups water
3 cups vinegar
1/3 cup canning salt (don't use table salt)
*Mix all ingredients together in a pot, bring to boil and turn down to keep hot until you are ready to pour over the beans.

For the Beans:
3 lbs fresh beans
whole peppercorns
Fresh Dill flower and stem
Jalapeno pepper
Whole dried hot red pepper
Whole garlic cloves peeled
*To each tall pint jar add 1 tsp whole pepper corn, 1 dill head with about 3" stem attached, start stuffing with green beans when it's about half full of beans, add the whole hot red pepper (you can add the pepper or jalapeno or both) & garlic so that it's up against the glass and then stuff the rest of the beans until you can't fit anymore.
*Note: I didn't know how hot the red peppers would be so I did one jar with one red pepper, one jar with 2 red peppers and another jar with 2 jalapeno peppers. I'm experimenting here to find out which is the hottest.
*Another note: The garlic came right from my brother Mike's garden. I love that :)
*After you have stuffed the beans, fill the jars with the hot brine until about 1/4" below the top. Wipe off the rims of each jar so the seal will be perfect and no bacteria will develop with a bad seal.
*Lower the sealed jars into the hot boiling bath water and immediately start timing 15 minutes.
*Remove after the 15 minutes and let sit. LET SIT FOR AT LEAST A WEEK to enjoy the wonder of the Hot Dilly Beans!