Dinner from the garden

[bijou]

Today I picked some small white eggplant, tomatoes, bell pepper and toogether with garlic, shallots and potatoes which I grew also I made a delicious roasted vegetable dish.  I also used (not home grown) 3 tbsp olive oil; cilantro seeds; mixed spice salt and pepper and rice.
pre heat oven to 450 degrees F
slice eggplant lengthways and sprinkle with salt, leave to stand for 20 minutes, then rinse
roughly chop the bell pepper and garlic, halve shallots and cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes
chop larger tomatoes leave the smaller ones whole.

toss the eggplant, pepper, shallot and potatoes in a mixture of the olive oil, cilantro seeds and spice and salt and black pepper to taste
place in a roasting pan in a single layer, cook for 15 minutes then turn the vegetables gently, cook for another 15 minutes then add the tomatoes and cook for a further 15-20 minutes until the tomatoes have roasted.

Meanwhile cook some rice

When both are ready serve vegetables with rice, you can stir them in if preferred.

[franksolich]

Sounds excellent, excepting the pepper, madam.

[Flame]

Sounds delicious! 

[bijou]

Sounds excellent, excepting the pepper, madam.

The good thing about the recipe is you can substitute most vegetables for smallish chunks of others, you do need a starchy one such as potato and either tomatoes or some tomato sauce, other than that you have a free hand.

[SaintLouieWoman]

Sounds excellent, excepting the pepper, madam.

The good thing about the recipe is you can substitute most vegetables for smallish chunks of others, you do need a starchy one such as potato and either tomatoes or some tomato sauce, other than that you have a free hand.

This sounds delicious. Would the eggplant taste all right if you don't put the salt on it or could you rinse the salt off after it stands for a while? I'm on a low sodium diet.

I'm jealous of your garden. You must have a huge one. All I have are 3 tomato and 3 yellow pepper plants----and many miscellaneous herbs.

[bijou]

Sounds excellent, excepting the pepper, madam.

The good thing about the recipe is you can substitute most vegetables for smallish chunks of others, you do need a starchy one such as potato and either tomatoes or some tomato sauce, other than that you have a free hand.

This sounds delicious. Would the eggplant taste all right if you don't put the salt on it or could you rinse the salt off after it stands for a while? I'm on a low sodium diet.

I'm jealous of your garden. You must have a huge one. All I have are 3 tomato and 3 yellow pepper plants----and many miscellaneous herbs.

The salt is just to draw out the water in the eggplant so just rinse it all off before cooking.  SLW I have a tiny garden about 12 feet by 20 feet or so.  I grew the eggplant in a pot on the patio! I'll try and remember to take some pics and post them.

[SaintLouieWoman]

Thanks for giving me the idea. I think I'll try to get another couple large pots for next year and try eggplants. Have you had success with any other plants in pots?

[bijou]

Thanks for giving me the idea. I think I'll try to get another couple large pots for next year and try eggplants. Have you had success with any other plants in pots?

You can grow almost anything in a pot, my dwarf Kenyan beans have done very well (actually in relatively shallow pots), strawberries, chard, all sorts of herbs and salad leaves, I have a blueberry bush in a pot too because I don't have the right sort of soil so I'm growing in in ericacious compost.  Last year I planted some garlic in pots because I'd run out of space in the garden which did well too.   I'd suggest getting  books on container gardening from the library or look on the netand seeing what would grow in your area's climate/soil.  The only real limit to container gardening is the relative cost of compost to the produce at the end of the day.  I don't want to spend lots on compost to produce a small amount of veg I could buy cheaply.