Recipes: June 2007 Archives

We celebrated two birthdays yesterday, my mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Yup, she gave birth to my wife's brother on her birthday. There were ten of us, my m-i-l, her husband, my b-i-l and his wife, my s-i-l and her husband, wife, and the boys. I originally had steaks in mind, but several of the group don't eat red meat, so barbecued chicken it was.

I made four sides to go with the chicken, potato salad, a simple rice pilaf, mac-n-cheese (from the box!), and eggplant au gratin.

I make potato salad using my momma's recipe. Take 5lb of red potatoes, boiled, peeled, and sliced, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, one onion, chopped, 4-5 tbps of pickle relish, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and creole seasoning to taste. Combine the potatoes and eggs with enough mayo to make a thick consistency. Add the onion and pickle relish (the relish's liquid will thin out the salad overall). Add salt, pepper, then creole seasoning. Refrigerate for an hour or so.

The rice was very simple. Saute 1/2 cup of chopped onion (I picked up a huge vidalia onion at the grocery that I used for both the potato salad and the rice) in 2-3 tbps olive oil. Add 1 cup long grain rice to this, then 1 cup of beef stock and 2 cups of water. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to absorb the liquid, adding another cup of water to keep the rice fluffy.

Kraft mac-n-cheese, just like you made in your dorm room. :-)

For the eggplant au gratin, I grabbed a nice, medium-sized eggplant, sliced thin. Make an egg wash of three eggs and 1 cup milk. Dip the slices in the egg wash and then into a mixture of 1 cup italian-style bread crumbs and 1/2 cup white flour. Deep fry the breaded slices until light brown. In a 9x9 casserole, lay down a layer of the slices, then spread a couple of spoonfuls of tomato sauce (I used Emeril's "Sicilian Gravy" for this one), and sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top. Add another layer and repeat until you use up all the eggplant. To top it off, I tried something different. Kraft has these "crumble" packages now, and I picked up one that is provolone, parmesan, and feta. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes.

We had leftovers of the potato salad, but that's OK, because I love it, and the mac-n-cheese, but that was for the boys. The rice got gobbled up, and I swear, there wasn't even a forkful of that eggplant left. I've made eggplant au gratin for this group before, but not with this level of success. I think it's that cheese combination...