• Mind the directions on the package — it’s something like a quart of liquid and between 1¼ and 1½ cups of polenta meal.
• I use chicken stock for my liquid.  For now, I’ve got Better than Bouillon stock-making paste.  It has a noticeable celery flavor.
• Follow your directions and salt and pepper, etc.
• When that’s all done, I stirred in a little more than a half a small container of ricotta cheese.  It must be about a cup.
• It was good then, and creamy.
• But, I let it sit.  So it firmed up.
• So, I reheated it and stirred in milk until it was smooth and creamy again.  This will also make sure it never firms up.

The Fennel:

• I sliced up all of the bulb part of the fennel that I had.  I guess it was about ¹⁄3 of the bulb.
• In a large bowl, I whisked together a little orange juice, some white balsamic vinegar, honey, and salt.
• I tossed the fennel slices in the mixture, then let it sit there while I forgot about it and did other things.  Not long.
• As time came to pass, I drained the fennel and grilled it for 6-7 minutes under the microwave-combo oven’s “grill” setting.

The Mushrooms:

• I sliced the portobello caps about ¹⁄3″ thick.
• Then, I brushed each side with a melted butter & olive oil mixture that was blended in a pan that had been just used to sauté garlic (for a side dish that I’m not going to write about), there was still a little bit of garlic in the pan.
• Salted and peppered.
• Then, I grilled the mushroom slices much as I had done for the fennel,  7-8 minutes in the microwave-combo oven on “grill”.

Assembly:

• I toasted some walnuts in a frying pan.
• Well, first I burnt some.  Then, I toasted another batch.
• I crumbled the walnuts roughly.
• I coarsely chopped a couple of handfuls of flat leaved parsley.
• First, lay down big blob of polenta.
• Second, sprinkle liberally with parsley.
• Third, spread grilled fennel slices over the top.
• Fourth, prettily arrange grilled portobello slices over top of all that.  Yes, I said “prettily”.
• Fifth, sprinkle over with toasted walnuts.

• I brined the chicken.
• — and to the regular salt/sugar brine, I added the left over liquid from some braised pork that I made the day before.  Because: why not?

The Rub

• In my coffee grinder, I blended:
• Several springs worth of fresh rosemary leaves.
• A small handful of black pepper corns — I don’t know, maybe 20-30.
• A hearty shaking of paprika from a tin with the spout opened at the “pour” setting.  Enough to give the rub a reddish color.
• Cumin seed.
• Then:
• In a bowl, I mixed the blended spices with:
• About 4 cloves of pulverized garlic.
• Kosher salt.

Assembly:

• I removed the chicken from the brine and dried the skin thoroughly.
• Then, I rubbed my rub under the skin on every part of the chicken that I could get under the skin of (which is almost the whole bird).  I rubbed what was left of the seasoning on the outside of the skin.
• Then, I stuffed the inside of the bird with:
• 2 quarters of a white onion.
• 2 halves of a peeled mandarin orange.
• A few sprigs of rosemary.
• Several whole, peeled cloves of garlic.
• Finally, I rubbed the entire outside of the chicken with bacon grease.

Baking

• I fashioned a baking rack from two stovetop burner grates, covered with aluminum foil.
• Those, of course, went into a baking pan.
• I sealed off each end of the bird by suturing it with toothpicks.
• I also tied the drumstick ends together — although, I’m not sure what good that does and probably won’t do it again.
• I put the bird, breast up, into a preheated 425ºF oven.
• I roasted it for about 20 minutes, until the skin was golden brown.
• Then, I turned the oven down to 350ºF.
• I used a brush to baste the chicken, not to keep it moist mind you, but to get some more grease up onto the skin to help it become crispy.
• I flipped the bird breast down.
• I brushed some grease/juices onto the newly upward facing side.
• The bird continued to roast at the lower temperature for between a half hour or 40 minutes.
• After that, I flipped the bird back to it’s original position.
• Of course, I basted again just before and just after the flip.
• I continued roasting the chicken, basting one more time, until the internal temperature hit 160ºF.

Thoughts: OK, sure, there’s nothing about this recipe that is specifically related to Thanksgiving.  It’s what I made for the holiday though.  And, it was a tasty bird, that I’ll say.  For all the rosemary and garlic I used, the flavor was still pretty subtle.  It’s pretty hard to get flavors to roast themselves into the meat.  Similarly, you really wouldn’t know from tasting that there were any pork products involved.  You could just rub the skin with vegetable oil to help it crisp.  But, I think the bacon grease does add a note of something or another.  Likewise, with the orange inside — all you really need is some slow-release moisture.  A wet sponge would probably work just as well.  Only, if you use one, you probably shouldn’t ever tell anyone.

• First, in a pot or pan with tall sides, heat a ¼ cup or so of olive oil.  (No, I didn’t measure it.)
• Dice a ½ an onion and sauté it until there’s not an inordinate amount of moisture left.
• Clean as much baby (little) cuttlefish as you’ve got, or want to eat, and cut the bodies into halves.
• Drain and liquid from your cuttlefish and save it.
• Add your cuttlefish to your onions and sauté until they’re no longer translucent.
• Now, you need liquid.  I’ll bet white wine would be good.
• I didn’t have wine though. I had juice from steaming clams.  So, I used that.
• I also poured in the juices that had drained from the cuttlefish a bit earlier.
• In the rare possibility that the cuttlefish didn’t release juices that deglazed your pan, now would be a good time to make sure everything’s deglazed.
• Stir in a large can of chopped tomatoes.  Or, in my case, chop up a large can’s worth of whole tomatoes and stir those in along with the juice.
• Pour in some water.  Remember, you’re making stew or soup, or whatever.
• Add a large amount of dill.  I used dried dill.
• Season.
• Add in quite a few shakes of paprika.
• Plus a little saffron.
• Then a teaspoon or so of cinnamon.
• Maybe some more dill, depending on how you feel.
• Now, with the clam juice, and all, the fishiness was a bit intense.
• So, I stirred in a couple of capfuls of cider vinegar and a huge, plastic bear rending squeeze of honey.  You couldn’t taste either vinegariness or sweetness later, I swear…
• Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until the cuttlefish are soft.
• Then, throw in a couple of handfuls of rice.
• Next, chop up about a quarter of a bundle of fresh parsley and stir it in.
• After that, de-stem and wash an entire package of spinach.  If it’s not packaged, use a lot.
• Stir in the the spinach, and cook it until it’s nicely wilted down.
• Cover the pan and let it sit until the rice will be tender enough to eat.
• I served it with bread for mopping.

The Eggplant:

• Preheat your oven to 400°F.
• Peel and slice an eggplant into thin rounds.  Two eggplants might be better, but I only had one.
• Salt both sides of the eggplant slices.
• Lay them out between two layers of paper towels for a half hour or so to draw out some water.
• Rub olive oil over both sides of the eggplant, arrange them on a cookie sheet, and bake them for 15-20 minutes.  The idea is to brown them just a little and to draw out more moisture.  (You don’t want moussaka soup.)
• When you’re done, turn the oven down to 350°F.

Meanwhile, the Moussaka Innards:

• Sauté a chopped, yellow onion until it starts to turn translucent.
• Add in a few coarsely chopped carrots.
• And about four pulverized garlic cloves too.
• Sauté a little more.
• Throw in a whole normal-sized package of baby portobello mushrooms, coarsely chopped.
• Stir in a hefty amount of oregano.  In this case, fresh oregano will be especially worthwhile.
• Add in a large can of puréed tomato’s worth of puréed tomatoes.
• Simmer.
• Stir in a dose of ground cinnamon, a big spoonful or so.
• A spoonful of paprika will also be good.
• I put in a giant pinch of ground ancho chili.
• The secret ingredient is a spoonful of Ghirardelli hot cocoa mix.  Well, really, it was just the closest thing I had to pure cocoa powder.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Continue sautéing.
• Shortly before it becomes fairly thick, add in a lot of finely chopped fresh parsley.  Dried parsley just won’t work here.  I put in about half the bunch as bundled by the store.
• Simmer for a couple more minutes.  It should be thick.

The Cheese Sauce:

• Make a simple roux + milk + cheese sauce:
• Melt some butter.  I’ve got some Smart Balance, supposedly healthier, buttery-ish spread that I use for toast.  If you use it for cooking, it tastes like you used the yellow butterifying goo on movie theater popcorn.  So, this time I added a dab of it to the regular butter just to, what do they say on Food Network?  Kick it up a… something or another…
• Stir in a whopping handful of flour.
• Keep stirring − until it’s deeply golden and smooth.
• Add just a little milk.
• Incorporate.
• Repeat incorporation of milk in small increments until what you’ve got is sort of like a thick pumpkin soup.
• Add in more milk until it’s thinner.  It all depends on how much cheese you use and how much sauce you want.  (It needs to cover your baking dish.)  I probably used about a cup and a half in total.
• Stir in about a half a cup of cheese.  I used a blend of hard mozzarella and cheap Parmesan that is relatively soft and flavorless when compared with the good stuff.  It’s my standard.
• Stir and melt.
• In a little bowl, whisk 2 egg yolks.
• Whisk a dose of hot sauce into either your yolks or your cheese-milk.
• Whisk the yolks into the milk.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Your result should be thick enough to sit on top of the moussaka you’re about to put together.

The Assembly & Production:

• In a baking dish, arrange alternating layers of:
• Eggplant slices.
• Topped by a very light sprinkling of cheese.
• Topped by a medium-thick layer of the tomato veggie sauce.
• Repeat until everything is used or pan is almost full.
• Then,
• Pour your cheese sauce over top.
• Top your cheese sauce with light sprinkling of cheese.
• Bake at 350°F until the cheese on top has satisfactorily browned.

The Review: Winner! Sure, you can’t use vegetables to make it taste like it has lamb in it.  The flavor of what I had was pretty nice though.  I enjoyed the texture of the large chunks of carrot in what is otherwise a pretty soft mound of food.  Well, really, I guess I should say it was a good solution to a moussaka that was, without meat and without enough eggplant, much softer than it normally would have been.

• Chop up a couple of slices of bacon into little bits.  I always remove the biggest chunks of fat on the ends.
• Sauté them in a pan with tall sides.  (You need the tall sides to hold in the spinach until it wilts down.)
• When they’re a little brown and not too crispy yet, add some butter and a little olive oil.
• Toss in some finely chopped garlic, 2 or 3 cloves.
• Goldenbrownify.
• Add some red pepper flakes.
• Add a hefty dose of moderately chopped spinach.
• Stir.
• Salt.
• Now, you’ve already thawed out the frozen oysters that you bought last week.
• Because you thawed them in a bowl of water, you have some oyster water in a bowl.
• Pour just a little of that water into the sautéing spinach.  Don’t put in too much, just help it get some steam going and deglaze the crud that the bacon left on the bottom of the pan.
• Dump in your thawed oysters.
• Sauté for a minute or so.
• Pour in heavy cream.
• Stir.
• A squeeze of lemon juice would be good.  But, the closest thing I had was rice vinegar, and it was good.  Just don’t overdo it.
• Now, I’m pretty sure Oysters Florentine should properly have a Swiss sort of cheese, Gruyère or something.
• I didn’t have that.
• I did, however, have some really fantastic cheddar so good you’d never guess it’s related to “cheddar”, as in the orange stuff that covers “taco dip”.
• So, I grated in a little of that (white) cheddar.
• I also grated in some cheap Parmesan, as in not-very-pungent Parmesan, about double the amount of the chichi cheddar.
• Stir in a small dose of hot sauce, as in Co-op Image Hot Sauce.
• Simmer until you get an Alfredo-like consistency.
• Stir in a bunch of dried parsley.  Fresh if you’ve got it…
• Season.

• I brined my chicken for a few hours.  I’ve been taken in by too many crappy supermarket chickens.  If you have a fresh chicken, however, brining isn’t necessary before roasting.
• Preheat the Oven to 325°F.
• Dry your chicken.
• Run your hand under the skin to separate it from the meat.  You may need to trim some of the skin around the bottom end opening in order to get in to the area around the thighs.  But, you should be able to separate skin on the front, back, and even the drumsticks without tearing or removing anything else.
• Sweat a hefty amount of finely chopped sage and some garlic in olive oil.
• When the sage and garlic are sufficiently cooked, melt about a 1/3 of a stick of butter into it.
• When the butter is melted strain it into a small bowl.
• Take the garlic and sage from the strainer and rub it all into the meat under the skin, all over the chicken.
• Dice up some apples, enough to stuff the chicken with.  I have some type of baking apples I’d never heard of until I went to a pick-your-own orchard last weekend.
• Stuff the apples into the chicken.  (You’re not going to eat them.  And if you try to, make sure they’ve been heated well enough to kill anything the chicken juices may add to them).
• Brush the outside of the entire chicken with the butter.
• Put the chicken in a pan with a rack.  (I don’t own a rack, I use the burner grates from my stove top.)
• Start with the breast up.  Well, you’re going to flip the bird a few times.  All that matters is to finish breast up because that’s where it’s best to have the crispiest skin.
• Roast for a half of an hour.
• Then flip your bird.
• Roast for another half of an hour.
• Flip your bird again and raise the oven temperature to 400°F.
• The bird should be breast up now.  That helps it self baste while the raised temperature renders the fat.
• After about 20 minutes (I stopped watching the clock), flip the bird breast down.
• Baste.
• Roast until the skin looks brown enough to be good.
• Baste as often as you can be bothered to do so.
• After another 20 minutes or so, flip the chicken breast up.
• Continue basting until a thermometer thrust into the chicken’s breast as if you were trying to stab it in the heart reads 160°F.
• Take the chicken out of the oven and let it rest until you’re too hungry to care about “resting” any more.
• Remove the apples and carve away.

Caesar Dressing:

• Put two egg yolks in a blender.
• Add two small garlic cloves, pre-chopped sufficiently to allow your blender to deal with it.
• Add a splash of hot sauce.  I use Co-op Image Hot Sauce, it’s smoky and delicious.
  
• Squirt in two teaspoons or so’s worth of mustard.
  
• Also add a ½ teaspoon or so of Worcestershire sauce.
• Put in 4 or 5 anchovy fillets, such as those that come in a jar packed with oil.
• Crank up the blender until everything is liquefied.
• Keep the blender running on a speed that won’t throw up a huge mess during the next few steps.
• Very slowly drizzle in about a ½ a cup of olive oil.
• Assuming everything has remained emulsified, continue…  (if not, panic, add more egg yolk, and whisk in a bowl.)
  
• Squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon.
• Add about a tablespoon of wine vinegar.
• Add a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar.
• Sprinkle in a double handful of grated Parmesan cheese.
• Grind in some black pepper.
• Turn off the blender.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes:

• I would like to hereby make a culinary stand to say that the only time sweet potatoes are better with sugar in them is when they’re served for dessert.  They’re already called “sweet”, you know?
• Peel and chop up your sweet potatoes.
• Put them in a pot with just a little bit of water.  The truth is that they already have plenty of water in them.  But, adding a little to the pot helps the sweet potatoes get started cooking without the ones on the bottom of the pot burning.
• Cover the pot and turn the heat on medium.
• Once things come to a boil, stir the sweet potatoes every few minutes to prevent burning on the bottom.
• When they readily fall apart while your stirring, they’re done.
• Mash them.
• Add salt, pepper, and ground ancho chile flakes.
• Stir in some milk, to whatever consistency you like.

• Rinse the pork tongues.
• Place them in a large pot of boiling water with enough vinegar to make a noticeable vinegar aroma.  This is for the likelihood that you bought the tongues in a place that doesn’t sell much of them, and that they’re kind of stinky – which is no big deal.  But, fresher tongues don’t have any funky smell.
• Boil them for 15 minutes.
• Remove the tongues and dump out the water.
• Put the tongues back in the pot and cover them with salted water.
• Bring the water back to a boil.
• Simmer for a really long time, until the tongues seem relatively tender.
• Take the tongues out and allow them to cool to a temperature you can tolerate touching.
• Trim off the rough skin on top, especially at the back end, and remove the junk from the bottom.
• Cut the tongues into small cubes.
• Place in a bowl and marinate them with salsa, tasty salsa.

The Salsa:

• Go to a Latino market or into the “ethnic” section of your local big box grocery, assuming it carries Mexican items other than those by Ortega and Mission.
• Buy one small can, not jar, never jar, of salsa in a green can.
• Buy one small can, never a jar, of salsa in a red can.
• Stir the contents of those cans together.
• I promise you that it will taste better than any “white people’s” jar of salsa you’ve ever dipped Tostitos into.

Making Tacos:

• Dice a tomato.
• Finely chop some cilantro.
• Dice a little bit of onion.
• Crumble some hard, crumbly Mexican cheese, such as that which comes in a package labeled “queso duro”.
• Heat your tortillas thoroughly.  In case you’re from the Midwest and not Chicago, I’m here to tell you that burned tortillas are better than raw ones.  I don’t know why so many of my Caucasian peers seem to like doughy tasting tortillas.
• Oh, and if you buy Mission or remotely big brand looking tortillas in a non Hispanic market, they’re going to taste doughy no matter what you do.  Rule of thumb: buy tortillas in a store that caters to Central Americans.  If you live in an area with a lot of Hispanics, and there are tortillas in more than one section of your supermarket, the cheaper ones will be better.  Also, if you buy tortillas and they don’t go bad within a few days, even in the refrigerator, the kind you bought weren’t very good.
• By now, your tongue meat is probably cold.  Reheat it in a frying pan as if you were cooking raw beef stir fry.
• Put everything on top of the tortillas.  It looks better if you add the cheese last.

Jicama Salad:

• Put a some olive oil in a bowl.
• Add a moderate dose of finely chopped cilantro.
• Drizzle in some white wine vinegar.
• And a big spoonful of honey too.
• Plus some ground cumin.
• Salt.
• Pepper.
• Red pepper flakes.
• Stir.
• Peel and julienne some jicama.  Put it in the bowl.
• Slice up a few radishes and throw them in too.
• Mix in some greens.  I used the leaves from the radishes, which have a strong flavor that can fill up the blandness of jicama.
• Toast some crumbled up almond slices.  Mix them in with the salad.  Actually, you could use any nut or any kind of squash seed.  Almonds are what I had.

Phase 1, The Chicken:

• I had two split chicken breasts (with bones & skin).
• Preheat the oven to 375°F.
• Toast some cinnamon and a little cumin in a pan, until fragrant.
• Mix those with some salt and a couple pinches of sugar.
• Then, rub the seasoning all over the chicken, under and over the skin.
• heat olive oil and a dab of butter in a cast iron skillet.
• sear the chicken breasts, skin side down.
• once seared, flip them and place the skillet into the oven.
• Take them out of the oven when they’re done − at 160°F core temperature.
• Set the chicken aside to rest and keep the drippings in the skillet.

Phase 2, Prepping the Couscous and the Stock:

• Put the couscous into a pan with tall sides.
• Turn the heat on medium-high and toast it, stirring, until the exact moment that it begins to smell toasty.
• In a pot, heat some chicken stock until it’s too hot to put your hand into.
• Rub and sprinkle in a tiny bit of saffron.

Phase 3, The Flavor:

• In the same skillet that you cooked the chicken in, with the drippings from the chicken:
• Sauté a half of diced onion and a minced shallot, until they have begun to brown.
• Add in:
• Some chopped dried apricots.
• Some chopped dried figs.
• Some chopped dried dates.
• (Don’t be skimpy on the fruit.)
• Continue sautéing for a minute or so.
• Sprinkle in some cinnamon.
• Salt.
• Add little bit of minced ginger.
• And, some finely chopped mint.
• Stir and sauté for another moment.
• Pour in the seasoned chicken stock.
• Bring the soup to a boil.
• Pour the soup into the pan with the couscous and stir.
• Put a lid on it and wait for your wife to come home for dinner.
• Fluff the couscous.
• Put it on a plate and put the chicken on top.

Thoughts: This was one tasty piece of chicken − crispy skin, tender, juicy, and roasted-cinnamony.  All of the fruit and the flavors in the couscous were full and complex, while still light.  I’m not sure what it is though, but my couscous never has quite the fresh-feeling texture and taste of couscous in a snazzy restaurant.  I mean, it’s good.  I’d make it for a hot date, if I wasn’t married, that is.  But, I’m just not sure what it takes to make perfect, delicate couscous.

• Cut a butternut squash in half lengthwise.
• Scoop out the seeds.  Clean off the goop to your liking.  Sprinkle with salt, olive oil, and any seasoning you like.  I used paprika this time.  Then, bake them.  Remove them from the oven when some start popping.  Eat them while you wait for the squash to finish.
• Place the squash face down in a pan with an inch or so of water.
• Roast at 425°F until the squash is tender when touched with a fork.  I usually wait until the skin starts to brown a little.
• Meanwhile, poke some holes in five medium Russet potatoes.
• Put them in the oven with the squash.
• The potatoes will need more time than the squash.  But, like the squash, when they’re tender, they’re done.
• Allow everything to cool to a temperature that you’re willing to stick your hands in.
• Scoop all of the potato and squash out of the skins and mash them until all of the lumps are gone.
• Mix in two beaten eggs.
• Add some salt.
• Also pepper.
• Mince several sage leaves, mix in those too.
• Sprinkle in some ground thyme.
• add some grated Parmesan cheese, maybe a ½ cup.
• Add flour, mix, knead.
• Here’s where things get murky.  I started with two cups of flour and it wasn’t even close to enough.  The dough continued to surprise me with it’s ability to remain too wet.  So I don’t have any idea how much flour I put in – probably more than four cups.
• … just mix in flour until you have dough that is very soft but can be kneaded without sticking.  However much that is.
• pull the apart and roll it into little oblong eggs shapes.
• I use Lidia’s fork-rolling method that leaves little indentations in the gnocchi.
• To cook, boil as big of a pot of salted water as you can, with as much water as you can get into it without risk of spilling over.  Then, dump in the gnocchi in batches of not more than two servings (unless you have an industrial size pot).  Scoop them out with a strainer when the float and remain floating.

The Sauce:

• I cut up a handful of yellow cherry tomatoes into little pieces.
• I also cup up a double handful of tomatoes from my balcony.  They’re a little smaller than Roma tomatoes, and red.
• Pulverize a few small cloves of garlic.
• mince five or six small sage leaves.
• mince a little bit of fresh rosemary, not so much as to overpower the sage.
• heat some quality olive oil in a pan.
• Sauté the sage and rosemary for a moment.
• Add the garlic and sauté until the rawness is cooked out of it.
• Dump in all of your tomatoes and toss.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• I put a little bit of ground thyme in the sauce too.
• Continue sautéing until the tomatoes release some of their juices to make things a little more of a sauce.
• Add the cooked gnocchi to the sauce and toss in the pan.
• I grated more Parmesan cheese on the plated gnocchi.

The Review: I thought this added up to a great end of summer/beginning of autumn flavor.  The time has arrived for the last of the fresh tomatoes and the first of the fresh squash.  The sauce was bright and bold, strong, and a bit acidic.  All of the tomatoes were very fresh and sweet, which helped a lot.  I also thought the mixture of yellow and red tomatoes made for a nice color with the pale-orange gnocchi.   I made the gnocchi a little too large, for lack of patience when rolling them out.  As it were, the size threw the texture off a bit.  But, they had a nice, soft squash flavor that could lend itself to a lot of different gnocchi dishes.

• I used cherrystone clams.
• first, wash any dirt off of the clam shells.
• pour an inch or so of water into a big pot.
• add a bunch of salt.
• put the clams in.
• close the lid and turn the heat on.
• wait until all of the clams open, then turn off the heat and take them out of the water.
• let them cool.
• sauté a small handful of diced onions and a little bit of minced garlic in a little oil.
• when the clams cool, chop them up.  Cherrystone clams are a little on the tough side, although tasty.  So, they need to be cut into fairly small pieces to avoid getting chewy chunks.  (Nobody likes chewy chunks.)
• dump the onion & garlic into a bowl with your clams.
• add a whole bunch of Panko.
• some minced green onion.
• juice from one lemon.
• lemon zest.
• a little minced cilantro.
• some dried parsley.
• a couple handfuls of grated Parmesan cheese.
• salt
• pepper.
• some liquid left over from boiling the clams, enough to make the Panko and everything stick together.
• fill up clam shell halves with the mixture.
• bake them at 375ºF until a little bit of brown color develops on top.

Stuffed Thai Eggplant:

• cut the little eggplants in half.
• use a little spoon to scoop out as much of the insides as possible without destroying the shells.
• sauté some diced onions – more than you would for the clams – and a hefty dose of minced garlic in a little oil.  I used more oil than I might have otherwise so that there was still some to mix with the eggplant after the onions & garlic were done cooking.
• dice the scooped-out eggplant.
• mix it with the freshly sautéed onions & garlic.  And,
• a fair share of Panko.
• salt.
• pepper.
• red pepper flakes.
• plenty of paprika.
• noticeable portions of cilantro.
• a little bit of mint.
• loosely pack the mixture together and stuff it back into the eggplant shells.
• bake them at 375ºF until a little bit of brown color develops on top. (Just like the clams, in my case at the same time.)

Served With: LInguine with pesto and cauliflower.  I’m not going to go into the recipe.  I’ll just say that the pasta noodles were homemade, the pesto was frozen from when I killed off the basil at the end of last summer, and the cauliflower was an attempt to make sure we ate enough vegetables.  Altogether, it was the easiest way to fill out the meal with starch – which as you know, is the base of the food pyramid!!!

Thoughts: Clams = pretty good.  The bivalves themselves were fresh, oceany, and full of flavor.  The stuffing mix let that come through.  Eggplant = good for weeknight, not for a first date.  I was pleased that the eggplant’s own flavor was prominent.  And, the little green Thai eggplants are sort of cute.  My wife ate the skins, I scooped out the filling.  The skins are a little tough and bring a “raw” sort of flavor with them, for better or worse.