Baba Ghanoush

While we're on the subject of vegetables I don't like, let me mention eggplant. I do not like eggplant.

Well, most of the time. See, it's the stringy flesh of the eggplant, against its often razor sharp skin that I really do not like. (Why leave the skin on when it gets so unappealingly hard and sharp as it cooks?) Japanese eggplant, chopped small and in a stir fry with other vegetables, I can get behind. Eggplant parmesan, I like it alright.

But when it's roasted and pureed into baba ghanoush, I can really love the lovely eggplant. It is a very good looking fruit, no?

Too bad its looks are all but destroyed in the making of this mash. But via that process emerges something differently lovely -- a gentle, tangy, deeply appealing dip. Kindred to hummus and just as easy to make. If you've never tried, now's as good a time as ever.

Because in addition to being totally easy to make, it's a super transportable food. We brought it (along with Monday's zucchini alchemy) to a picnic last weekend and it fared just fine in the car while we were out hiking. An idea for your Labor Day at the beach, perhaps?

Get the recipe for this baba ghanoush here.

PS. Thanks to my dear Elaine for the Hoover Dam beer cozy; it carefully cradled a peach all the way up the mountain.