Happy New Year! One of my resolutions for 2013 is to cook more and to post more to MichDish. What better way to start with a post from new year’s eve dinner last night! So… cookbooks are one of my favorite things. Even if I never make any of the recipes the pictures and flavor combinations are just inspiring on their own. This year one of the cookbooks I received was Plenty. The photography is just beautiful and everything looks amazing, so when I was in charge of a vegetable side dish for our annual fancy new year’s eve dinner, I decided to turn to the cover recipe.

Disclaimer: I generally do not like eggplant. I find it way too oily or have an issue with texture. The eggplant with buttermilk sauce that was on the cover of this cookbook though is just so inviting I couldn’t not make it. As it turns out the recipe was super simple, a breeze to prepare in advance and bring to the dinner, and so  beautiful and festive looking. Not to mention pretty delicious!

So here’s what you’ll need to serve 6 (or depending on how large the meal is… to serve 24).

• 3 eggplants (the longer and skinnier the better) 
• 1/3 cup olive oil 
• 1 Tablespoon thyme 
• garlic salt and cracked pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with tin foil. Slice eggplants in half lengthwise, cutting through the stem (for pretty presentation). Using a sharp knife make 3-4 parallel incisions on the inside flesh of each eggplant from stem to base, being careful to not puncture the outer skin. Then make several diagonal cross cuts to create diamond patterns in the eggplant. With a pastry brush evenly distribute the olive oil on the flesh of the eggplants and then sprinkle with thyme, garlic salt, and cracked pepper (you can use other pepper, but there’s something so rustic and chef-y about taking out your pepper grinder). Roast eggplant for 40-50 minutes. If you have 2 baking sheets that don’t fit on the same rack, rotate them half way through the cooking. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

To make the buttermilk sauce, combine 1 cup fat free Greek yogurt (you could use whatever type you like though, i just like the fat free one), 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons light buttermilk (again, use whichever type you prefer), 2 cloves crushed garlic, 2 Tablespoons olive oil, garlic salt to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

The next thing you have to prepare is the pomegranate. If you don’t know how to get the seeds out of a pomegranate without making TOO much of a mess, it’s simple! Cut the pomegranate in half and hold it in your hand, seeds facing your palm over a bowl. With a wooden spoon, smack the pomegranate and the seeds will fall through your fingers into the bowl. It’s a great way to take out frustration. 

The recipe also calls for za’atar which is a middle eastern spice blend. The grocery stores in Hoboken do not sell this, but a specialty food shop would. Or you could make your own like I did with this helpful recipe! I must say, the toasted sesame seeds being ground up give off the BEST aroma!

So, now that you have all the components comes the fun part: presentation! To assemble, arrange the eggplant halves on a platter, coat generously with the buttermilk sauce (you will have a lot to spare, so don’t be shy!), sprinkle with za’atar and top with pomegranate seeds. It looks so festive and elegant. Happy New Year!

Last Monday through Friday, two colleagues and I participated in Jill Pettijohn’s juice cleanse. It was a tough week, but what was tougher has been the days since the cleanse. Apparently, there is a specific way to break a cleanse and for the first 2 days you have to essentially avoid meat, sugar, flour, bread (basically all things delicious and hard to avoid). So needless to say there have been a lot of fruits, vegetables, and nuts in my life. Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of these items (in fact, I am having a mild love affair with raw almonds and organic ground peanuts) but for dinner I needed something a little more indulgent. You may laugh at my new definition of indulgent, but this recipe has cheese which was an amazing treat after 7 days of vegan-ism.

After finding some organic gruyere in the grocery store it was my mission to find a recipe that included cheese and vegetables. This was the recipe I used as a base. And these were the vegetables I decided to use:

The whole recipe is pretty simple which is great for a lazy Sunday night. First, slice the zucchini, onion, broccoli, and tomato. With the onion, you want to slice as thinly as possible so that you’re not munching on raw onions at the end of the recipe. Add all ingredients in a mixing bowl and add 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp hot sauce, 2 tsp basil, and a pinch of garlic salt. The recipe recommends Tobasco’s green pepper sauce, but all I had was Frank’s red hot. If you have a green pepper hot sauce, I would definitely use that. The flavor of the green peppers will mingle better with the basil.

Mix all the ingredients together until they’re well coated and spread them into a baking dish. Sprinkle the top with finely grated Parmesan and Gruyere cheese. This can be done to taste. I used 1 tsp of Parmesan and probably 2 Tbsp of Gruyere.

Bake at 425 for 25 minutes. The tomatoes blend with the olive oil and seasoning to make a nice sauce.

This is a great side dish or main meal you can feel great about eating.