Purple Rain

It was raining when I got home the other night, making me less likely to walk somewhere to get dinner, even though there was not much in my fridge. What I did have…three beautiful baby eggplants, waiting to be eaten.

With this in mind, I decided I would see what we could do with them. I consulted the Betty Crocker Cookbook first. While it does not have a lot of beautiful recipes with fancy ingredients, it does include some very handy references on ingredients, including a section on vegetables.After consulting this, I decided to simply forge ahead with my eggplant, some garlic and butter and a skillet.

I chopped the eggplant. Because these were small, I cut off the ends, then quartered and sliced them into roughly cube-like shapes. I was NOT exact (where is the fun in stressing over exact dice – this is not Top Chef!).

I then chopped some of that lovely garlic I got from the CSA, and chopped a few of the last garlic scapes. I melted a little butter in the skillet, then added the garlic and scapes, with a smidge of salt and freshly ground pepper. When the garlic began to soften, turn golden and become aromatic, I added the eggplant.

The gentle hiss and wafting aroma made me want to sample the dish almost immediately, but I waited, letting it cook a bit, then swirling and flipping the eggplant in the pan to continue to cook it. After about 10 minutes of stirring and cooking, I sampled it.

The eggplant still had its structural integrity, maintaining the cube shapes, but the insides melted in your mouth. It was divine. I added a bit of salt and pepper and some fresh oregano, gave it a quick stir over the heat for about another 30 seconds, and removed it from the heat.

While it might be nice to serve this over pasta, for example, or as a super-simple caponata on bruschetta, I simply ate it just like this, off of a plate. It was perfect.