Once a year I really, really crave eggplant.

Eggplant 'Parmesan'. The eggplant was thinly sliced, salted and drained in a colander for 45 minutes. I used the flour - soymilk - breadcrumbs dip method, and lightly fried the pieces in olive oil. They were then baked with organic tomato sauce and Follow Your Heart Mozzerella, and garnished with fresh basil after baking. I couldn't resist the FYH purchase - on sale for $3.59 at New Seasons, it's been a long, long time since I used prepackaged faux cheese.

Next time I'll bake the eggplant, but I hadn't tried it fried and wanted to be 'authentic' and have it as tasty as possible hoping Thomas would try it (he's not quite keen on eggplant).
Okay, I crave eggplant a few times a year, but it's not something I ever have in the house. I am so glad and satisfied that I took the time to make this last night. Actually, on the rare occasion I go to Veganopolis, I always get the dry roasted eggplant sandwich.
This week's csa share: Sungold cherry tomtatoes, cucumbers, carrots, walla walla sweet onions, lettuce, pattypan squash, eggplant (2), yukon gold potatoes, chives (ew,ha!), 4 ears of corn and the bulk addition of 2 lbs. of basil.Two adorable colored bell peppers from the downtown farmer's market. I have to remind myself to eat them, I just keep looking at them and smiling..Cornmeal baked tofu, spicy sesame kale, raw carrots and dill roasted potatoes for dinner. I felt wholesome!Roasted golden beets - I used olive oil, sweet paprika, seat salt and cayenne - it worked so well together~Another hodgepodge of dill (and garlic too this time) roasted vegetables - sweet onions, golden beets, potatoes, carrots and wax beans. I baked another batch, this time double, of the chickpea cutlet recipe I tested for the new PPK
book. I love the texture of the baked method and Thomas prefers the fried (so we fried a couple more too). We're planning on making an even bigger batch this weekend. Anticipation, people!

1. Jody from Vegchic is awesomely generous and creative. She sent me these soaps and it's taken me a while to find the photo I took since it was right before my move and -
2. These soaps are fantastic - one is Rosemary Herb (right, Jody?) and the other is -swoon- Mojito! The Rosemary bar is currently in my shower.

I've been playing around with designs and am open to suggestions from people who actually know what they're doing. Update on the blogger photo woes - I was able to upload photos 1, and occasionally 2 at a time last night on my home computer, but not all of them. Some had to hang out on photobucket till I arrived early at work this morning. In other news - more progress has been made on actually settling *into* the new apartment. I'll try to remember to take a photo of the mural that's on our bedroom wall. I'm also daydreaming of what I'm making for my birthday in 6 days!