The Frugal Eggplant

No, it's not a new blog ;) This is the post wherein I relate fresh eggplant to personal finances and frugality.

I turned 38 a week ago and a couple of dear friends gave me a basket of fresh vegetables from the local farmer's market. It was a wonderfully fitting gift and visually stunning but I am sorry to say that I started snacking on the carrots before I thought to snap a pic for posterity. But I digress.

We don't cook a lot of eggplant, but I was inspired to do something special with the two in the basket. LaLa and I live around the corner from an Albanian restaurant that has a "roasted eggplant puree" appetizer they sell for $7 that rocks our world. I went on the hunt for a recipe similar to that.

This dish is similar to baba ganoush, but with some vinegar and definitely no tahini so I went googling based on ingredients (roasted eggplant garlic vinegar) and I finally decided to go with this non-dairy version of the Turkish recipe for Hunkar Begendi (sultan's delight) due to it's simplicity.

Success! Now we can make our own eggplant crack thank-you-very-much. And for much less than $7 (though I wish the restaurant much success). Due to some creative gift giving, google, and some kitchen experimentation (charring eggplant is the adult way to play with fire!) we have taken a something out of the pricey "treat" category and learned how to make it ourselves...inexpensively!