Grilled Eggplant and Sausage Pasta Made on the Grill

 Every summer, I get about half-way through and want...chili.  Pot Roast.  Lamb shanks.  I'm a bit perverse, I'm fond of saying.  I can't wait for the first grilled chicken and tomato salads.  I'm nuts about burgers on the patio in May with zin.  But there comes a day when salad looks bleh (stick out tongue) and I don't even much care about that long-awaited burger.  I want something  real.  I want pasta.  And I don't want it in a restaurant.

So last year, in January (way ahead),  I experimented with a pasta dish that included grilled vegetables and sausage, but I still made a cooked sauce in a pot.  A lot of folks have been interested in that post,  so here's a continuation...

I had the idea then to create a dish totally done on the grill--much fresher-- and I've now tried it.  Even the pasta is cooked on the side burner, if you have one.  (If not, buy fresh pasta to cook indoors; it cooks much faster.)  I'll amend that; Dave mostly tried it.  I designed, orchestrated, cheer leaded, made fresh cheese, and ate it up.  The only true heated cooking I did was to saute some garlic in the microwave and warm the milk to make cheese! (5 minutes)  Do you have to make cheese?  Of course not.  Buy ricotta--fresh if you can get it.  But I'd love it you made cheese.

I lately have been encouraging cooks to just try making an easy, quick fresh cheese.  There isn't much simpler to do and the brief instructions are below.  I'll also point out that if you need a lot of ricotta, this is the way to go; you'll save a bunch of cash.  To purists, this isn't true ricotta, which is made with all milk; here I add some yogurt.  My idea actually is a riff  (a mistake I made and liked) from a recipe created by dessert guru and Parisian blogger David Lebovitz.  See the original here.  (See my first attempts and info on how to make a firmer cheese here.)

Imagine pasta in the summer and no hot kitchen?   Try this:

Bacon Caprese or Make Cheese While the Sun Shines

While food trends wax and wane (Remember cupcakes?), I never-ha!-fall into the kitschy traps other foodies do.  I did make gingerbread cupcakes for Super Bowl a couple of years ago, but I would have done that anyway.  And you aren't reading about pork belly here, though I've nothing against it.  But I fall off the wagon a bit about bacon.  While I am definitely NOT a bacon fanatic (and it's on menus in quite odd places), my husband definitely IS.  But he has been a bacon fanatic since Eisenhower was president.
His favorite movie moment is in "Grumpier Old Men,"

Grandpa: What the... what the hell is this?
John: That's lite beer.
Grandpa: Gee, I weigh ninety goddamn pounds, and you bring me this sloppin' foam?
John: Ariel's got me on a diet because the doc said my cholesterol's a little too high.
Grandpa: Well let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up, and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?
John: Bacon.
Grandpa: Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should've took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I'm still here. Ha! And they keep dyin'. You know? Sometimes I wonder if God forgot about me. Just goes to show you, huh?
John: What?
Grandpa: Huh?
John: Goes to show you what?
Grandpa: Well it just goes... what the hell are you talkin' about?
John: Well you said you drink beer, you eat bacon and you smoke cigarettes, and you outlive most of the experts.
Grandpa: Yeah?
John: I thought maybe there was a moral.
Grandpa: No, there ain't no moral. I just like that story. That's all. Like that story.

 So last week when I shelled out the big bucks for a pound of Nueske's bacon at the butcher counter at Widmer's for the summer BLTs, I didn't blink.  In fact, I kept cooking that bacon daily to make sure it was all used before any stray pieces went bad.  You know how good your house smells when you cook bacon (Try it when you have a for sale sign out front..)?  Well, my house still smells like that.  The scent is fixed in the rugs and on the dogs, who can't stop walking around with their noses up in the air.  Dave acts the same way.  And if there's a fine layer of fat sprayed all over my stove, he doesn't wipe it up.  "A little bacon grease never hurt anything."

In the middle of that bacon for breakfast, bacon for lunch spree came a trip to the Saturday Farmer's Market in downtown St. Paul.  For all of you who've never been, this is the most beautiful market in the United States.  The food that you can't buy there doesn't need to be bought.

Spring market bounty

Perhaps I exaggerate.  But not by much.  At the market, I gently loved a few more Minnesota tomatoes enough to coax them out of their owner's hands and came home to make cheese for caprese.

(See how on my Dinner Place blog.)  But that bacon called.  And before I knew it, I'd fried up the last of it to tuck in between the caprese layers.  Not only that, I threw the haricots verts in a pot of boiling water for two minutes, drained them and topped them with a dop of herb butter.  (Here's how Ina does this. Why should I reinvent the recipe?)  I couldn't resist making a beautiful salad of the entire thing with the beans in the middle.

I don't see a reason for putting up a recipe for the caprese either; here's one from epicurious.com. Just add the bacon!   I will say this about my caprese:  I place the salad on a bed of spinach and I squeeze lemon over all and dust the whole thing liberally with ground sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper.  I then drizzle not too much of my balsamic vinaigrette over everything but the green beans, which are already well-seasoned with the herb butter.  Lemon on the beans--yes.  One of my favorites.

 

Love summer, my friends.


Two-Dog Kitchen and Around the 'Hood

The end of August isn't the end of summer, but there are signs.  The flowers look too tired to continue blooming, despite fertilizing and watering.  The road crews appear in a big hurry to get it all done.  There are Christmas decorations out in a few stores.  I'm looking for a guy to plow my driveway.  Acorns are dropping and the squirrels are very squirrely. The big tubs of mums are for sale at Ace.  Our floor refinishing (and installation in the kitchen) is scheduled so that we can do it while windows can remain open.  And, of course, in Minnesota, it's State Fair Week!  (Half a million sticks for food used so far.  And if you don't know what that is, it's anything edible that will stay on a stick.  See what you dream up.)

Neighbor's Victory Garden (from my driveway)

I close today with lovely news!  I am now newly employed as a choir director at Prospect Park United Methodist Church, which is a church just across the line in Minneapolis.  I'm thrilled, excited, and don't have words (right) for how light my heart is.  Watch this space for news of their fine singers and what fun stuff we're up to.   Thanks be to God.  And:  thanks to all who supported me and prayed for my employment.  Cyberhugs as you
Sing a new song,
Alyce