Patti's recipe in the Oceana Herald Journal!

from Andrew Skinner:

I did manage to get away from the interwebs long enough recently to give Patti Kreilick’s Eggplant Fajita recipe a try.

I met Patti, who is interning at Earthscape Farm, in Hesperia, and their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, earlier this month at a Shelby High School football game.

Patti said she enjoyed my work and cooking column, so as I do with anyone brave enough to say they actually read my column, I asked her to send me a recipe… and she did.

Patti says she came up with her recipe for Eggplant Fajitas after some of the CSA participants said they had a hard time enjoying eggplant.

“I started playing with different combinations and came up with some things that I liked,” she said.

When Patti first mentioned eggplant during our original meeting I was a little worried. I couldn’t recall ever eating the large purple vegetable and had no idea what to expect; but I figured like most people she would never send me a recipe.

Being a first time eggplant(er) I was unsure if I should cut the skin off. According to my friend the interwebs, I should — which I did — this was also seconded by Patti in a later e-mail.

Just in case you were wondering, according to the interwebs I had a female (lots of seeds) eggplant. That is why I love the good old interwebs so much. It is filled with so much useful and useless information.

Anyway, back to the recipe.

My first taste of raw eggplant reminded me of a cucumber, just dryer.

As I started cooking the cubed eggplant — since my chopping/cubing/measuring skills are lacking my cubes were 1/3 inch rather than the suggested 1/4 inch — and added the spices, I became worried I had chosen a pan that was too small. Lucky for me it cooked down and I had room for the rest of the ingredients.

The addition of the rest of the ingredients went just as planned. No fingers were sliced off or nicked during the chopping process.

The only problem I may have had relates back to my lack of measurement/size differential skills. I may have added a bit too much onion. I realized this about halfway through chopping one of those huge sweet onions. To me that is a large onion. aAs I stared at the mountain of onion on my cutting board I realized Patti probably meant a large regular size onion.

Prior to taking a few pictures of the finished fajitas, I decided to give one a try — and almost downed the entire batch.

The fajitas have a nice and spicy taste. Just like a fajita, with meat, the eggplant holds onto the spices, making for a wonderful meal.

I think I may like eggplant fajitas more than regular (meat) fajitas.

Thanks for one of my new favorite recipes, Patti.

I will no longer fear the (egg)plant.

Ingredients

4 Fajita shells

1 large eggplant, peeled, cube 1/4”

1 tsp chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

pinch cayenne

1 sweet pepper

1 large onion

1 clove garlic

1 hot pepper (optional)

4 oz. jalapeno cheese

Instructions

• Over medium heat saute eggplant in olive oil and add spices.

• Chop and add each ingredient individually. Follow the order of the recipe.

• Warm the fajita shells on the stove top

• Let everything cook down pretty well at a low temperature.

• Put the filling in shells and let the cheese melt a little.