Polenta Lasagna with Creamy Marinara Sauce

This one gets me the "gourmet quality" award from my sole taster.

I made more than necessary for two persons because I knew I could play with each of the following ingredients in different ways, separate from one another. For instance, the roasted vegetables filling can easily be made into an omelet.

For the Polenta:
(8x8 baking pan)

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped rosemary
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

1. Bring water to boiling. Stir in cornmeal and keep whisking until cooked and thick. Add rosemary, salt and pepper to taste.
2. Line a 8x8 baking pan with aluminum foil. Pour polenta over. Let cool and chill for at least 1 hour.
   

For the filling:

• 1 eggplant
  
• 1 red bell pepper
  
• mushroom, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 Tablespoon basil leaves, chopped
• 1 tablespoon oregano, chopped
• 4 oz mozzarella cheese
• Shaved Parmesan cheese for topping
  

Preheat oven to 200C. With the eggplant, use a fork to punch a few holes throughout and bake until the skin is charred and flesh is soft (about 45 minutes). Cut roasted eggplant into halves and scoop out the flesh from the skin. Chop coarsely.


With the red bell pepper, turning and roasting until the skin is charred. Peel off the skin once it's cool. Remove the seeds and chop coarsely.

Saute onions, garlic and mushroom with 1 tablespoon of butter and a generous pinch of salt. Stir to coat evenly. Add water, cover and cook until onions are soft. Uncover and cook until water evaporates. Remove from heat. Stir in eggplant, red bell pepper, basil, oregano and mozzarella cheese.

For the Marinara Sauce:

I twisted and combined two marinara sauce recipes into one. You may skip the cream cheese - it's good though. I didn't bother to puree the mixture - it's kind of good in its chunky, rough way.

While I was searching through the fridge for ingredients, the container where this Ethiopian spice-mix has been resting in for more than 6 months stared right into my eyes. I took a sniff at it - smelled good to me - and decided to use it in place of chillies flakes. Hey! It worked! I can now declare it "keep well in refrigeration for more than 6 months."

Once again, I'm showing my unrelenting effort in making homemade crushed tomatoes. Feel free to ignore my stubbornness. The tomatoes tasted better this time. Lucky strike!

• 2 large ripe tomatoes
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon Ethiopian spice-mix (or chillies flakes)
  
• 2 Tablespoons basil, chopped
• 2 oz cream cheese, cubed
• sea salt to taste

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Throw in tomatoes and cook until the skins break. Remove and let cool under running water (or cold water). Peel the skins and cut into quarters. Mash roughly. Set aside.
   
2. Saute onions and garlic with spice until fragrant (watch out for browning). Add crushed tomatoes. Cook until boiling.
3. Stir in basil and cream cheese to blend.
   
4. Taste and season with salt if necessary.
   

To assemble:

Preheat oven at 180C. Cut polenta into sizes that best fit your baking pan. Layer in this sequence (from the bottom): sauce, polenta, filling, sauce, polenta, filling..... End with sauce and top with shaved Parmesan cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover, reduce the temperature to 150. Bake for another 10 minutes. Allow it to cool before serving.

Camembert and Cranberry Stuffed Eggplant with Pesto

I am going to Singapore from tomorrow for 8 days. Past couple of days have been a struggle between clearing what's left in the fridge and buying what I'd like to cook with. Eventually I did a pretty good job having just a bunch of parsley and basil left. With such combination, one naturally thinks of Pesto. I would just like to emphasize the beauty of chopping instead of processing: you get these bits and bites of nuts and the ingredients that you don't get with the homogeneous paste from processor. It's a lot of patient and work especially so in a hot kitchen - you may want to make it a point to whoever you make it for. I have no doubt Adrian is well aware of the effort I put in to this pesto.

Here is something I made long before that I have always wanted to redo. It's a very intricate combination of flavors from the tartness of dried cranberry, creamy Camembert, savory pesto served with the ambiguous mushroom. Unfortunately despite all these varieties of mushroom they are showcasing during the Nine Emperor Festival, I couldn't find the wide, flat mushroom that I needed for this recipe. So what was I going to do? I bought eggplant. I knew I have made it my mission to challenge Adrian's taste bud but this time it was unintentional.

Instead of using dried cranberry, I used Homemade Cranberry Sauce made from dried cranberry. If you don't have the time for a proper pesto, go to the original recipe and follow its use of rocket leaves.

We liked the play of different elements in this recipe. Although I think mushroom is still the better choice than eggplant. I may do it again with mushroom when I come back if Adrian decides not to do anything with the extra pesto for the next 8 days.

Updated: I came home from Singapore and guess what? The extra pesto was left intact in the far corner of the refrigerator. No surprise there. Hence I decided to repeat this recipe with Portabella mushroom. You can use any flat mushroom. Remember to pick the big ones because mushroom shrinks in size when cooked. The method is basically the same:

• Fry mushroom (stalk removed) in a ovenproof pan until golden brown all over.
• Arrange mushroom with the bottom side up in the pan. Pile cheese and cranberry on the mushroom. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and basil leaves.
• Bake until cheese has melted.
• Serve with pesto.

I made this into a main dish by serving it along with a Cheesy Cheddar Corn Polenta. The real essence develops when the foods are slightly cooled and it is much better with mushroom than with eggplant. Two hours after the dinner, while I was preparing Sticky Date Pudding and Adrian slouching on the coach slaying yet another alien on X-Box, he said "dinner was really good". And guess who I made it for?

Ingredients:
(makes 2 servings)
For the Pesto:

• A few bunches of parley and basil
• 3/4 C Parmesan, grated
• 3 gloves garlic
• A handful of raw pine nuts (or walnuts/ pecans)
• Extra virgin Olive oil
• Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Sea salt

1. Start chopping the some of leaves. Add some Parmesan, garlic and nuts as you chop. Add more of the leaves, Parmesan, nuts and garlic as you continue to chop and chop and chop.... until they become more or less homogenized.
2. You'll need approximately 1 Cup of pesto for this recipe. If there's extra, press them into a cake in a jar, cover with extra virgin olive oil and keep refrigerated for future use.
   
3. To the 1 cup pesto, mix in 2 tablespoon lemon juice, 2 tablespoon olive oil and pinch of salt. Taste and adjust with more oil, lemon juice, and salt as needed.

For the Eggplant:

• 1 eggplant, sliced lengthwise
• Olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 Cup Homemade cranberry sauce (or dried cranberry)
• 125g Camembert, cubed
  

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Rub eggplant halves with oil and salt. Let roast for about 30 minutes, until the cut sides are browned.
2. Remove cooked eggplant from the oven. Top it with cranberry sauce and cubed Camembert. Return to the oven and let bake for another 20 minutes, until Camembert melts.

To serve:
Place eggplant halves onto individual serving plates. Drizzle pesto over and serve warm.

Grilled Goat Cheese and Eggplant Salad

"Eggplant is the most sexy food women can have" says Yogi Bhajan in Food as Medicine. What in the world does that mean? I remember reading a email saying eggplant is good for women because it resembles female womb. Hmmm.....To be more precise, and less woo-hoo, I turned to Google.

The above mentioned may have its root in traditional medicine, where eggplant is commonly used to improve kidney function and sexual libido in both men and women. Besides regulating body fluid, Traditional Chinese Herbalists believe kidney also plays an important role in sexual desire and activity in both men and women. An unbalance yin and yang energy in kidney would thus cause overactive or abnormal functioning of the urinary secretion and sexual function.

I have always loved eggplant. However, it's not the case for Adrian - another childhood trauma/ influence from Ian, I presume. So when he proudly proclaimed he was slowly overcoming eggplant phobia, I took the liberty to push his bottom. Hey! At least there's the goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes that he LOVES.

In this recipe, savoury goat cheese is the main protagonist, but it’s aided and abetted by the wonderfully aromatic partnership of basil and thyme as well as the sweet delicacy of sun dried tomatoes. Combined they act as a perfect balance to the slight bitterness of the aubergine creating a medley of flavors. Then comes the real deal: the addition of raspberries to the salad. Its tart sweetness blend and twirl the ingredient's flavors together, giving a "wow" to the unsuspecting taste buds.

I complimented this SEXY (thanks Yogi Bhajan) and tasty salad with a relatively simple Lemon Broccoli Soup.


A side note: I found lettuces at Paragon Gourmet Market that were sold with their roots attached. There were plenty of tiny rocks and black soil sticking to the leaves and stem, too!! How exciting!!

Ingredients for Grilled Goat Cheese

• 1 large eggplant, quatered
  
• 8 sun-dried tomatoes
• 200g French goat’s cheese, sliced into 12
  
• 12 basil leaves, torn
  
• 2 tbsp fresh thyme
  
• salt and pepper

Ingredients for the Salad Dressing

• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tsp Dijon mustard
• 50 ml olive oil
• A pinch of sugar

Ingredients for the salad

• 100g of mixed lettuce leaves
• 6 cherry tomatoes halved
• 2 tbsp raspberries

1. Place the eggplant slices on a baking tray and brush with olive oil. Season each slice with ground pepper and salt.
2. Place under a hot grill for 7 minutes. Whilst the eggplant is grilling, whisk the olive oil with the apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard and sugar in a large bowl.
3. Season to suit personal tastes then add the mixed lettuce leaves and cherry tomatoes and toss thoroughly to coat. Arrange the salad leaves and cherry tomatoes in the centre of each plate then spoon over the raspberries.
   
4. Turn the eggplant slices over and brush the other side with olive oil and season as before. This time leave them under the grill for 5 minutes until charred.
5. Remove the grilled slices of eggplant and arrange them so that the slightly charred eggplant flesh is facing upwards on all slices.
6. Lay two sun dried tomatoes on each slice along with fresh thyme and basil leaves.
   
7. Place 3 slices of goat cheese on each herb and tomato bed and season with ground pepper.
8. Return to the grill for 2 to 3 minutes until the goat’s cheese has started to brown and bubble.
9. Serve on bed of lettuces