Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

Some days, like today, bread for lunch just won’t do. My body’s been working overtime and was craving some comfort food. Comfort like pizza, but no time to make it, and no wish to order and go into food coma when I still had mountains of work ahead. Instead of loading up on carbs, I took an aubergine and turned it into mini pizzas. Yum. :) Ingredients (serves 1 as substitute for a regular pizza, or 2 as a snack or starter: 1 aubergine (eggplant) 1/2 cup tomato sauce 1 clove garlic, minced 6-7 leaves basil, plus some small leaves to top. 1 cup shredded cheese (mozzarella or another mild cheese) 3 mushrooms, sliced Instructions: 1. Take the aubergine and slice it into 6-8 slices, about 1.5 cm thick. Sprinkle both sides with salt and place on a plate covered with paper towels to allow the water to leak out of the aubergine. Leave for about 15 minutes, then refresh the paper towel and turn the slices over. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 2. In a small saucepan, heat the oil and ad...

Today is a special day. I have reason to celebrate today and am feeling grateful and in an especially festive mood, so I’m going to share with you one of the best recipes I’ve come across so far. I made it last night. The funny thing is that until quite recently when I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful eggplant dish made for me by a dear friend of mine, I was convinced I didn’t even like eggplant. I don’t know what I was thinking. I  bought a stunning purple and white striped version and set out to see what else I could do with it. This Ottolenghi recipe looked to good not to try, and it turns out it tastes as good as it looks. I adjusted the recipe just a little - I didn’t have fresh buttermilk so made a substitute, I added some tahini, and the result was incredible. I literally ended up licking my plate. Ingredients (serves 2 if you give each person 1/2 an eggplant. I ate this as a main and had the whole thing myself): 1 egg plant (aubergine) seeds of 1/2 pomegranate...