Eggplant Ricotta Bake

Oregano: widely used in Greek and Italian cuisines


I chose oregano as the featured herb for my Weekend Herb Blogging entry hosted this week by Scott of Real Epicurean. Fresh oregano, not dried. I cook with oregano all the time but I barely ever buy it fresh. That will be changing. The fresh oregano that I added to ricotta cheese to make an Eggplant Ricotta Bake really made the dish.

Last week Everyday Food on PBS featured this healthy recipe and I new I wanted to make it sometime this week. I have been trying to cook with eggplant in different ways. While watching this recipe being prepared, it seemed to me that it was like an eggplant lasagna. Eggplant was being used instead of any noodles. It is stacked between tomato sauce and ricotta cheese layers.


Since it is made in an 8x8 dish, I made four portions of out it. I had it right out of the oven last night and really loved it. But it was even better when I had some leftovers for lunch! This is a great meal to make and take to work during the week. I think the flavors melded together a little bit more, plus the shape held together better after it cooled completely. This is a healthy meal that is filling without making you overly full.

Eggplant Ricotta Bake (serves 4)

Ingredients
2 large eggplanats (1 to 1 ¼ pounds each), sliced lengthwise ¾ inch thick
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for baking dish
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1 container (15 ounces) part-skim ricotta cheese
(1 2/3 cups)
3 large eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano (or 2 teaspoons dried)
1 jar (16 ounces) store-bought marinara sauce (2 cups)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450°. Arrange eggplant slices in a single layer on two rimmed baking sheets. Brush lightly on both sides with oil; season with salt and pepper. Roast until eggplant is tender and golden, turning halfway through, 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together ricotta, eggs, ½ cup Parmesan, oregano, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, and ¼ teaspoons pepper. Brush an 8-inch square baking dish with oil.

Lay a fourth of eggplant slices in bottom of prepared dish; spread with half of marinara sauce. Top with another fourth of eggplant; spread with half of ricotta mixture. Repeat layers, ending with ricotta; sprinkle with remaining ½ cup Parmesan. Bake until bubbling and golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Food Network Awards

The Food Network. Love it or hate it, every foodie turns it on every now and then. This evening I was looking for a recipe on FoodNetwork.com when I saw an ad for the Food Network Awards which will be an event held at the annual South Beach Food & Wine Festival (which this year has partnered with the Food Network for the first time) in February, 2007. The award show will be televised on the Food Network sometime in April, 2007.

The first-ever Food Network Awards combines the fun of Food Network with the glamour of South Beach to make a completely unique, entertaining, off-beat awards ceremony unlike any other. From a red carpet hosted by Ham on the Street's George Duran and walked by the likes of Snap, Crackle and Pop, to appearances by your favorite Food Network stars, this is a fresh, new awards show. The best part? We're asking our viewers to get in on the fun. Cast your votes now in our five viewer's choice categories and don't forget to watch the Food Network Awards, coming in April, 2007.

I am intrigued by this because I love award shows. AND, I love food. AND, we get to vote! When I saw the bright red "Vote Now" on their homepage, my mind sped forward and I put my judging cap on. This is important since I will be voting for the likes of Paula Dean and Emeril. And I suppose I will have to make my decision one way or another about Rachael Ray. I excitedly clicked my way over to the voting page . . .

Viewer's Choice Award Categories are:

* Favorite Comfort Food Combo
* Best Ballpark Eats
* "Professional Grade" Food Applicance You Can't Live Without
* Favorite Childhood Classic Read
* Favorite Cool & Classic Cocktail

You can't necessarily tell it from the category headings, but there is no voting for ANY Food Network show. The "nominees" are various foods, drinks, books, appliances and baseball stadiums. I felt fleeced for a moment but I voted anyways. I am slightly suspicious of advertising being incorporated into everything. But, the awards show could be interesting to watch - if they do it right. But Snap, Crackle and Pop being on the red carpet smells like overkill of advertising to me. There is also a sweepstakes you can enter to win a trip to the awards show.

Gordon Ramsay Makes Dog Food

Gordon Ramsay's 'F' Word was hysterical tonight. First, he decided to enter a dog food contest. So to determine which recipe to submit, he took one dish from each of his four chefs down to the dog pound. He then picked out a dog that looked like each chef and let the dogs pick the winner. One dog ate the fastest and cleaned his plate while one didn't even touch the food at all. That determined the winner and loser. So off went his submission to the contest.

Later he has some sir guy do a blind taste test with wine. There were three rounds and he had to pick which was the expensive wine and which was the "celebrity" wine. Bob Dylan, Olivia Newton-John and someone else were the celebrity wines. The sir guy got the first one correct but picked Olivia Newton-John's wine and Bob Dylan's over the expensive one. The Bob Dylan wine went up against his own which which he makes and sells so he even failed against that. I didn't even know Bob Dylan and Olivia Newton-John had their own wines.

When he ventures out to a single father's house to teach him how to cook for his two children he can't get a cab. Not because there are none available, but because he said something nasty about London's cab driver a few years ago and now no cab driver will pick him up!

In his restaurant he has three stock brokers as the amateur chefs this week. At the restaurant they served Sautéed potatoes with red mullet and anchovy (all 50 customers paid), Saddle of lamb with apricot and cumin stuffing (21 customers refused to pay), Summer pudding with lime crème fraiche (12 customers refused to pay). All goes pretty well, but Gordon doesn't trust them to make the dessert which is donuts. Below is a clip of him getting all frustrated with the amateurs (there is ALOT OF SWEARING) and it is the maddest he gets all episode, but it's classic Gordon.

No Winner on Top Chef

Top Chef was kind of a disaster this week. It started out with a fun quick-fire challenge. The Chefs has to take the "Kraft Gourmet Snack Challenge". They were provided with mayo, zesty italian dressing and barbeque sauce and had to create a snack. Sam's tempura with pickled peaches won.

It got really stressful for the elimination challenge. The group was split into two teams of three people each. And they had to set up their own RESTAURANT. Marcel, Cliff and Elia opt for a "diner" approach with hamburgers as the main course. Of course it was a gourmet diner though. Ilan, Sam and Mike went with an Italian theme. The diner served beer but the Italian one didn't serve any alcohol so they got a lot of negative feedback from the customers from that. Both teams had so many messes and poor service at the front of the restaurant that the judges couldn't declare a winner.

All six chefs were judged and had the risk of being sent home. In the end, Mike was the one who had to pack up his knives. It's about time I think . . . Except for last week, he always seemed to be not up to par in his culinary skills.

Now it should start getting interesting. I think Marcel may be the next one to do as I don't believe he has ever one any challenges. And he apparently has an attitude problem that might get in his way. Elia, Cliff, Sam and Ilan seem to be the top four. I guess we'll find out next week

Top Chef Gets Creative

Ted Allen was the guest judge on this week's Top Chef. Creativity seemed to be the theme of Episode 9: Seven. For the quick fire challenge, each chef had thirty minutes to create a meal based on a specific color. To determine colors, the chefs each picked color-marked knives out of a block.

Some difficult colors! Green seemed like the easiest, yet the meal prepared got the worst reviews because of too many different flavors which didn't work well together. Other colorful meals would be either red, purple, orange, brown, yellow or white. At first I thought brown and white would be the hardest with because those foods are all so bland. But red and orange are a bit of a challenge too. Hell, they would all be hard!

The funny part was that Cliff is color blind. He had purple so he had to guess which ingredients to use because it all looked like black to him. He thought he remembered that at one time someone told him eggplant was purple so he started with that.

Orange won the challenge with a salmon-based dish.



For the elimination challenge, the chefs needed to demonstrate inspiration. They had to work together as a team to create a seven-course dinner inspired by the seven deadly sins. Now that is an interesting challenge!

Wrath - Spicy Shrimp Ceviche with Chili Pepper Popcorn
Sloth - Trio of Slow-Roasted Vegetable Soups
Envy - Trout & Salmon
Greed - Seafood Bouillabaisse in Thai Curry
Pride - Roasted Chicken with Vegetables
Lust - Cherry Tart w/ Chocolate & Whipcream
Gluttony - Chocolate Cake and Funnel Cake Donuts

The major concern for the team were the two chocolate desserts. But Marcel the trouble-maker decided upon chocolate after he knew Ilan was also doing chocolate.



Debi Mazar from Entourage hosted a dinner party where the meal was served. It was a fun group of people and they all seemed to be having fun as each sinful course was served.

So which sin was the winner and which sin was the loser? Sloth was defeated while Envy triumphed over all.