Thursday, November 21, 2013

"He's makin' a list, checkin' it twice..."

Santa Claus had the right idea:  make a list!  Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project fame also counsels us to make lists--"Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments." (Rubin comes up with 12!)  What?  the 10 big ones aren't enough?  The wacky nun/ex-nun Karol Jackowski came up with "seven more commandments" in her book Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die:
Don't work too hard
Share
No hitting or hurting
Have a real good time
Always let conscience be your guide
Forgive and forget
Let it be
 So what's fun about that?  Well, you can take your own sweet time to find just the right personal commandments.  And nobody is gonna be standing over you until you do it or give advice on whether
it's worth your time.  Or keeping track of whether you keep your personal commandments or not.  Except you.  That would pass for fun here in chez XE.

My personal commandment #1 is Keep on Learning!  There is so much I don't know, and with bloggers supreme Cop Car, Ole Phat Stu, Hattie, & Little Red Hen as my inspirations, I'm gonna dig
into topics I don't know much about.  #1 is eggplant.  What the hell good is eggplant for but soaking up calories when you fry it?  We all know that kale is a fountain of good health & vitamins, but eggplant?  Well.  You get my drift.  Cop Car and Stu are the engineers/physicists/pilots--there's hardly
anything they don't know about math (urk). Hattie stays ahead of the game from her far outpost, and LRH provides a feast of information, often about baking bread, weird crafts, and other topics relating to Home Ec.

Anyway, following nun other than Jackowski's "other seven," I won't work too hard on this, and I'll share my findings (ha--fancy word for results?). 

5 comments:

  1. Eggplant salad is delicious.

    1. Place your eggplants on foil over the stove on low flame, until all sides are thoroughly cooked and charred until the skin is black.
    2. Cool and remove outer skin
    3. Use a wooden spoon to pound the thing until it is soft and mushy (hehe don't know any other way to describe it)
    4. Mix in olive oil, finely chopped onions, salt and lemon.
    5. Refrigerate and serve

    Delicious with french bread and white wine.

    Enjoy :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Diana....isn't this close to Baba Ganoush--minus the tahini?. One of my bosses at work used to make it, and she called it "Bobo Ganooch." Eggplant, like other highly colorful veggies, is one of the most heart-healthy foods in Mediterranean cuisine. It has lots of fiber & vitamin K, low cholesterol, and is loaded with bioflavenoids and polyphenols. I used to think of it as kind of a nothing vegetable, and its Hindi name, baingan, means "without merit." Just a myth, clearly. The wonderful vegetarian lasagne recipe in the great old Sunset Vegetarian Cooking has eggplant, and what impressed me about the eggplant in that recipe was its texture and weight--similar to meat, but not meat.

    I'll try the salad with the french bread and white wine this weekend, and we'll raise our glasses to you!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks like you got some spam there,M.E.
    I get eggplant from a friend,the long Asian variety. I like to throw it on my grill along with tomatoes,onions,etc. Easy and good.
    Thanks for the blog mention!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5:53 PM

    Well, XE, aren't you just the sweetest thing? I think so. Anyone who can write that way about moi, and mention me in the same sentence with Stu, is aces in my book (if a bit demented - lol!)

    Japanese eggplant has found a home in my garden for the past two summers. Not terribly productive; but, I'll plant more in 2014.
    Cop Car

    ReplyDelete
  5. ha....never said i WASN'T demented!! you and stu are plenty sweet your own selves, ditto hattie and LRH. I do learn lots from each of you alla time. and I'm learning LOTS about eggplant. my favorite so far is eggplant noodles. Now there's a fab idea!! Alton Brown has a great recipe--all that fiber and vitamins and the rest--and none of the problemz with wheat.....link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggplant-pasta-recipe/index.html

    ReplyDelete

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