The [Baba] Ghanoush is Loose

I always love a good dip...French onion, buffalo chicken, salsa, hummus, spinach & artichoke...the list could go on and on.  The great thing is that these dips are usually pretty easy to make at home, and you can tweak them to your preferred tastes.

Baba ghanoush is another one of my favorites, and you won't believe how easy it is to whip up.  We had a bunch of Turkish eggplants from our share and this was the perfect use for them.  I started by cutting off the stems, and cutting each eggplant in half.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper and each half, and place cut side down on a baking sheet.  Along with the eggplant, I threw a few cloves of garlic onto the pan as well.  Pop these babies into the oven and let them roast until the eggplants are tender and the garlic has that nice, roasty sweetness.  This took about 30 minutes for me.

Once they're done, let them cool a bit so you can handle them.  Then just scoop out all the meat into your food processor.  Throw in the garlic, and add the rest of your ingredients; equal parts tahini and olive oil, and a splash of lemon juice.  Then just blend it all together.  If you don't have a food processor, you can easily use an immersion blender to puree everything.  Add salt & pepper to taste, and you're done!  I went a little crazy with the garlic, and it was a bit overpowering, so we added a little extra olive oil and some paprika to tone down the garlic flavor.

Then we just cut some pitas into wedges, brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and popped them in the oven to crisp up.  Voila!  Homemade pita chips!

The perfect vessel for your baba ghanoush!

It's the Greatest of all Time (G.O.A.T)

I've only eaten goat once before, at my graduation dinner last year at Komi.  It was a slow-roasted goat shoulder, served with pita, tzatziki, and a few other condiments.  So when we got ground goat in last week's share, we drew inspiration from that meal to make Greek-style goat meatballs with tzatziki.

For the meatballs, we found this recipe by one of our Food Network favorites, Michael Symon.  As always,we took a few liberties with the recipe, and made our own tweaks.  To start, we chopped (rather than grated) half an onion and a couple cloves of garlic, and tossed them into a pan to sweat down.  After 8-10 minutes, the onions will be translucent.  You'll want to set them aside and let them cool before you add them.

While the onions and garlic are cooking, you can start mixing up your meatball mixture.  Cumin, coriander, cinnamon and nutmeg went into a bowl with our goat.

To that we added an egg to help bind the meatballs, the zest of a lemon, some oregano and mint.  Once your onions and garlic have cooled, toss them in with the meat mixture, and combine everything thoroughly.  Just be careful not to overwork the meat.  Form the meat into balls, roll them through some flour, and toss them into a hot pan to cook.  We got a nice sear on the outside of the meatballs, and then tossed them into the oven to cook through.

To accompany our meatballs, we cooked up some romanesco.  It is a variant of cauliflower, and almost looks like some kind of medieval torture device.  We decided to treat it as we would cauliflower, and roast it with brown butter, mint, red onion and lemon juice.  Since we didn't have any cheese, and we still wanted a salty, umami component, we shaved a little bottarga on top.

To finish off our meatballs, we whipped up some tzatziki, sliced up some red onions and tomatoes, and toasted up some pita.  Slather your pita with some of your tzatziki, line with red onion and tomato, and then toss in your meatballs.  We used some extra mint as garnish.  To help your meatballs fit into your pita, give them a little smash with a fork.  I learned this trick from eating lots of falafel!  And there you have it...Greek-style, goat meatballs!