Tip of the Week: Edible Garden Features Eggplants
Posted in Gardening Tips on August 23rd, 2010 by Sonia Uyterhoeven – Be the first to comment |
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center. |
When I grow vegetables, I count on a wide array of cooking magazines and celebrity chef’s to challenge and stretch my imagination so that I can find creative ways to prepare my bounty.
The other day I was flipping through a cooking magazine featuring Greek cuisine. I perused the magazine with interest, since one of our Celebrity Chef Kitchen Gardens for The Edible Garden was created by Chef Michael Psilakis, owner of Kefi and author of How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking. (He will present a cooking demonstration at the Conservatory Kitchen on October 16 as part of Fall Finale Weekend.)
Michael’s garden bed is filled with dandelion greens, grapevines, arugula, mint, dill, tomatoes, artichokes, and eggplants. His culinary style is a sophisticated Greek modern fusion that seamlessly combines fish or meat with vegetables, spices, and herbs.
The magazine’s stuffed eggplant recipe (from another Greek chef) caught my interest. Eggplants stuffed with lamb, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, onion and garlic, seasoned with cinnamon, oregano, cloves and nutmeg. Yum. That’s delicious, culturally complex, comfort food if you ask me.
Eggplants are a favorite of mine in the vegetable garden. A staple of the warm season crops (those planted after the last frost date), eggplants love the heat, and I generally wait until June 1 to set my transplants into warm soil. read more »