Garlic spiked aubergine

I love aubergines. I love moussaka, Imam Bayildi (the Imam fainted, who can't love a dish that's so good it makes a holy man swoon!), I love it stuffed in a veggie curry or chilli, or just grilled in great slices until its soft and flavoursome. I'm always looking for new ways to cook them though, and when I came across a recipe for Garlic Spiked Aubergine I just couldn't resist. Its from Catherine Mason and Elda Abraham's Vegetable Heaven cookbook, although in that they top it with a breadcrumb crust which I ignored for the sake of my gluten free needs (Orgran make gluten free breadcrumbs and whilst theses are great for bulking out burgers etc. they are far too dry for a crust of any kind). This recipe basically called for halving the aubergine, making deep scores in it into which you put thin slices of garlic (a clove per half), brushing with olive oil and then baking in a medium oven in an oiled dish for about an hour. The top was toasty, the flesh was soft and the flavour was wonderful! So simple and so good.

To partner this, I made up a quick chick pea and tomato dish, frying onions and garlic before adding a tin of each of the main ingredients and letting it simmer for a while. I served this with a side of corn bread, not the muffins that I have previously blogged about, but my pancake style recipe which is so quick and easy its untrue.

Pancake style corn bread
1/4 cup of polenta
1/4 cup of plain flour (works great with Dove's Farm Gluten free!)
1/4 cup of milk (works great with Rice milk)
1 egg
1tsp Baking powder
2 tbs oil

Heat a pan over medium heat, and warm up 1 tbs of the oil. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl. Add to the pan and cook until the bottom is brown (in my omelette pan the top is still liquidy at this point but it depends on the circumference of your pan!) Flip over and cook until both sides are brown. Serve!

Corn Bread and lentil pate

Ah Christmas.  Lovely gifts for using in my kitchen.  This year I got a pretty Ciroa Miniamo Cupcake Stand and some of their silicone cupcake cases too.  Unfortunately I also got on Wii Fit Plus and found out I'd piled on 1/2 a stone in the last few months between comfort eating and celebrating, so making cupcakes was out of the question.  Doh!

I've been inspired lately by reading Cafe Karma which is the blog of the wife of an online friend of mine.  She makes some incredible vegan food and has recently posted about cornbread which reminded me how easy and delicious it is to make and suitable for my gluten free diet!  I sorted out my printed out recipes yesterday and found a few cornbread recipes I meant to try, and some of the lentil pate recipes I used to make quite often for lunch so when my SO asked me today "What's for lunch?" I had an immediate answer!  But more exciting was the prospect of using my cupcake cases to bake the cornbread.  Yay!

Cornbread muffins
2 cups of cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups of milk (I used rice milk)
2 tbsp of vegetable oil.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 8.  Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another, then mix together.  Pour into muffin cases and bake for 10-15 minutes until they're golden and pulling away from the tin slightly.  Makes 12 muffins.  You can also bake this in a 9inch cake tin and cut into slices.

Lentil Dip
1 tin of lentils
1 onion
Butter or margerine
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp tomato puree
Balsamic Vinegar
Mushroom Ketchup

Fry the onions and garlic gently in a little butter or margerine until caremallised.  Add to the blender with the lentils (drained and rinsed) and the tomato puree and blend until smooth.  Add dashes of vinegar and mushroom ketchup until you have the taste you want.

The cornbread popped out of those muffin tins leaving them squeaky clean, wonderful!  The lunch was enjoyed by all of us, especially my 3 year old who had great fun working the food processer with me and 'tasting' the dip!  I am sad to report the loss of my Global mini-cleaver though, which broke into two pieces on being dropped today.  It was a great knife, but at least I now have an excuse to go knife shopping for the first time in a decade - those Global Knives are sheer awesome.