Hot Pepper Sauce
I've wanted to make a hot pepper sauce for the longest time. Today, I finally did it!
The concept is pretty simple, but the ways of going about it are more varied and complex than I ever thought possible.
My all-time favorite hot sauce is Tabasco. I love it. It has just the right amount of heat, I like the flavor... It's what I was weaned on. It is also the most difficult and complex to make - fermenting pepper mash literally for years, to begin with. I was looking for something a bit quicker.
After looking at a score of recipes - I bought a hot sauce cookbook a few years ago - I decided to just wing it.
I had gathered maybe two pounds of assorted hot peppers from the yard - mostly tabasco and jalapeno with a few others thrown in - and started to work.
I stemmed the peppers and put them in the blender - seeds and all - with white vinegar. I also added about 8 dried guajillo peppers that I bought for something I never made. I did a few batches, making it all as smooth as possible. Into the pot I added sugar, water, salt, and a tiny bottle of Fuoco dell' Etna liqueur we picked up in Sicily that's just been hanging around collecting dust. And then some Absolut Peppar Vodka because, why not?!? It's been hanging around for years - no one drinks it - so it's time to put it to use, as well.
I brought everything to a boil, cooked it a bit, strained it, and bottled it.
The end result is pretty damned good. It's slightly sweet and slightly vinegary at first - and then the heat hits.
And it has some heat!
This is one of those things that will never be replicated but that's okay. This should get us through the winter.
Smoky Sweet BBQ Sauce
When we did our latest harvest from the garden, I thought a BBQ sauce was in order. We've already done pasta sauce, straight tomato sauce, and salsa. Time for something new.
I've made BBQ sauce in the past with varying degrees of success and thought it was time to tackle it. again.
Armed with a boatload of tomatoes, I started off.
I didn't peel the tomatoes - although I did core them. I used an immersion blender and didn't use a food mill, either. The end result isn't the thick, silky sauce from the national brands - there are no emulsifiers or thickening agents - but it's still thick and rich with lots of sweet smoky flavor!
Smoky Sweet BBQ Sauce
- 8 pounds Tomatoes, chopped
- 4 onions, chopped
- 6 garlic cloves, chopped
- 3 hot peppers, chopped
- 1 cup bourbon
- 1 cup brown sugr
- 1 cup molasses
- 2 cups apple cider vinegar
- 3 tbsp ancho chili powder
- 2 tbsp dijon mustard
- 3 tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp black pepper
Saute the onions in olive oil until they begin to become translucent. Add garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and bourbon. Cover, and cook until tomatoes break down - 20 to 30 minutes.
Using an immersion blender, puree tomato mixture. It doesn't have to be perfectly smooth at this point - you'll keep blending as you go along.
Add remaining ingredients, using the immersion blender to mix everything really well and to make the sauce as smooth as possible.
Bring to a slow boil and cook, mixing often with the immersion blender to prevent scorching, for another 45 minutes to thicken.
Taste and check for seasonings, tweaking the smoky/spicy/sweet balance to your liking.
Bottle the sauce according to the type of jar, bottle, or container you choose.
I used 12 ounce sauce bottles and got exactly 12 bottles - pretty much a miracle. I never get exact amounts like that when I can!
You can play with this one a lot. Switch out the type of chili powder, the type of hot pepper, use a different vinegar... Have fun with it!
And speaking of canning...
You can get mason jars at pretty much any major grocery store, but if you're looking for special bottles or jars for something more fun or special, take a look at Fillmore Container. Their jars and lids are reasonably priced and they ship immediately! I've had great luck with them!
The Last of the Beets
I suppose all good things must come to an end. Today, that good thing was the beets from the garden. Victor wasn't a huge fan of them until he found out that they all didn't taste like those red things coming out of a can. Once he tasted a fresh golden beet roasted in the oven, he was a believer! We had a few last year - and even more this time around!
We planted golden beets and zebra striped beets and I even learned something about growing beets, as well. We had our beet section cordoned off and I went in to sow the seeds. Well... let us just say that I got lazy and didn't plant them in any sort of row or order. I just kinda threw the seeds out and called it a day. Beets prefer to have a bit of room on their own to grow. They don't necessarily like having six beets competing for the same real estate. Next year, I shall give them their proper space. Learning experience.
Tonight I took those beets and oiled them up a bit and put them - covered - into a 425°F oven for a bit under an hour. When they were cool enough to handle, I peeled them and cut them into chunks.
The chunks got liberally doused with balsamic vinegar and they went back into the oven to caramelize a bit.
And then dinner was served. Because we still have tomatoes coming out of our e pluribus unum, I sauted chicken breasts, topped them with a really thick slice of tomato, and baked them off for about 20 minutes. I then topped it all with cheese and let it all get gooey.
To complete the plate, we had a bit of last night's eggplant rolatini.
I can't believe how much fun this garden has been. We are really eating well. Really well. The fun has been trying to come up with different recipes using the same few items. We have canned pasta sauce, canned plain tomato sauce, salsa, peppers, eggplant... I have about 5 pounds of green beans blanched and in the freezer... And more tomatoes coming in.
I think this weekend I'm going to make some BBQ sauce.
And tomato salad. Lots and lots of tomato salad.
Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes in Olive Oil
There are days when I am just not the brightest color in the crayon box...
We have a bit of an overabundance of cherry tomatoes, so I thought I'd give oven-drying a try. I searched Chef Google and found a pretty simple recipe for oven-drying and then preserving in olive oil. About as simple and basic as simple and basic can be.
What I liked about the recipe was there wasn't any canning, per se - just covering with the olive oil. My grandmother canned everything with paraffin, so I get the concept of keeping air out to prevent spoilage.
Back when I lived at Tahoe, my roommate, Steve, made a dehydrator from screens. The air is so dry at 7000 feet that we would slice up just about anything - strawberries, peaches, tomatoes - and lay them out on the screens and hang it outside. In a few days we had dried everything. Alas, things are just a tad different in the humid east.
To work I went.
I washed and dried tomatoes...
And then I sliced them and laid them out on sheet pans...
I sprinkled them with Maldon salt - because I have a lot of Maldon salt along with the 14 other salts I have from when I was going through my salt craze.
Into a 210°F oven for almost 6 hours, turning and rotating every hour.
I brought up 8 pint jars to hold the multitude, and brought up the big blue pot to boil them all in - they wouldn't all fit in anything already upstairs and they needed to boil for 10 minutes before filling with the dried tomatoes.
Finally all ready. I started this at 8:30am and it's now 3pm. Time to fill those jars.
I grab the first one out of the boiling water and filled it - with every one of the tomatoes. 7 hours and I got one jar of dried tomatoes in oil.
Not a great return on investment.
Pot went back downstairs, 7 jars and lids went back downstairs, and the lone jar of tomatoes went into the 'fridge.
Here's a link to the recipe in case you have nothing to do for six or so hours...
Tomato Sauce
It seems like just yesterday that I was lamenting the lack of tomatoes. I am officially lamenting no more.
Houston - we have tomatoes.
And I mean tomatoes! What a crop coming in. Different colors, shapes, and sizes. Different flavors and textures. Absolutely perfect for blending them all together and making a quick tomato sauce.
This is new territory for me, but I went brazenly into it almost like I knew what I was doing.
I washed them...
And then chopped them, pureed them in the blender, added a bit of salt and citric acid, and into clean jars and the pressure canner.
The end result is 5 quarts and 16 pints of sauce.
The tomatoes were uncooked before going into the canner and the pulp and liquid separates. This is a very thin sauce.
It will be great for soups and stews or as the start of a quick pasta sauce. I saved a few of the best tomatoes for slicing and dicing, but there are a lot more almost ready to come in.
Tomorrow, I'm going to oven-dry the cherry tomatoes and preserve them in olive oil. It's about a six hour process - although it's unattended most of the time.
I think that next week we'll be doing another batch of Victor's Sauce.
I'm loving this!
Eggplant Timbale
Victor spent the day in the kitchen whilst I was at work, today...
We harvested another seven eggplants, so he set to work creating spectacular foods utilizing the garden bounty. It's rough being us...
First off was a vat of Little Gram's Eggplant Appetizer. It's our go-to for fabulous caponata.
Naturally, it came out perfect. It's great as a bruschetta, a pasta sauce, hot, cold, room temperature... It's eggplant perfection.
And then we had even more eggplant perfection in the form of a timbale. Victor really did spend the day in the kitchen!
A timbale is not difficult to make, but it does take a bit of time. There are lots of steps involved, starting with cutting and cooking - in this case - the eggplant.
Here's a basic recipe. Amounts will vary depending upon how big you make it. Victor baked off a 10" timbale. Your results may vary.
Eggplant Timbale
- eggplant
- pancetta
- peppers
- ground beef
- peas
- pasta sauce
- penne pasta
- shredded cheese
- olive oil
- bread crumbs
First step is to slice the eggplant and cook it. You can oven-bake, grill, or fry. Victor oven-baked it, today by brushing it with olive oil and cooking it in a 350°F oven for about 25 minutes.
Next, chop pancetta and peppers.
The peppers came out of the garden. they're not really hot but have good flavor.
Saute the pancetta...
Add the peppers...
And the ground beef...
And then the sauce and peas... Cook the penne and mix it all well...
Oil and liberally coat a springform pan with bread crumbs. The breadcrumbs help to release the timbale when it's cooked.
Line the pan with the cooked eggplant...
Add a layer of shredded cheese...
Next, a layer of the penne pasta mixture...
More cheese...
More pasta mixture...
More cheese and then fold the eggplant over the top, pressing down to compact and encasing everything.
A few crumbs on top...
And into a preheated 350°F oven for about an hour and 15 minutes. If you plan on inverting the timbale onto a serving platter, bake as-is. If you are not going to invert, add sauce and cheese to the top midway through.
Remove from the oven and let sit at least 20 minutes before serving or inverting onto a platter.
Cut into wedges, and enjoy!
This really is an awesome dish and one that anyone can make. Victor used just one eggplant for the entire dish, a half-pound of ground beef, maybe 2 oz of pancetta, a half bag of frozen peas, maybe 6oz of shredded cheese, 4 small peppers, a quart of sauce, and a pound of pasta.
It definitely needs to set for at least 20 minutes if not a bit longer, so plan accordingly.
If we were making it for company, we would have inverted it onto the platter and topped it with additional heated pasta sauce dripping down the sides for that dramatic effect. For the two of us, the springform pan liner was sufficient.
So get yourself an eggplant and get cooking!
Malloreddus and Sauce from the Garden
When the going gets tough, the tough get cooking.
Yeah... it's been tough the past few days. The bile coming out of the mouth of our Commander-in-Chief is enough to gag a maggot, as my father was wont to say. Pop was a WWII vet and would not be taking this well. Hell - I'm a Viet Nam vet and I'm not taking it well.
It's hard to stomach such blatant racism and disregard for human life in the year 2017. But I do take heart in the number of people who are seriously standing up and shouting "ENOUGH!"
Good will prevail. I really do believe that. But it's going to be a fight - and fight is something I am more than willing to do. Because trust me - I ain't going quietly.
Cooking and being in the kitchen has always had a calming effect on me. Funny, because I know a lot of people who start stressing at the mere thought of having to figure out a meal. I just find it easy. What can I say?!?
Monday afternoon, I pureed three gallons of tomatoes from the garden - they're starting to come in fast and furious - and today, Victor made his sauce. I came home and canned it. I got 10 quarts. A nice start.
This is the basic recipe. Obviously, three gallons of fresh tomato sauce is going to alter it a bit and in Summer the herbs are fresh from the garden, but the basics are here...
Victor's Sauce
- 2 – 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
- 1 – Sm can tomato paste
- 1-2 cloves of garlic (or to taste if you like more) chopped fine
- Olive oil
- Dried Italian seasonings
- Hot red pepper flakes (a tsp or more or less to taste)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Red wine (always cook with a decent wine, never “cooking” wine) about a cup or cup and a half
- Meat – such as Italian sausage or some nice beef or pork ribs or pork chops
Ok…I ALWAYS make my sauce with meat, so start with a deep, heavy pot and add about 3-4 TBS of olive oil. On high heat, once the oil is hot, start frying the sausage or pork, Let the meat get good and caramelized although you don’t have to cook it all the way through because you’ll add it back to the sauce to finish. Once the meat is browned take it out of the pot, put it on a plate and set aside.
Lower the heat to medium and sauté the tomato paste for a couple of minutes until it begins to “melt”. Add the chopped garlic and sauté with the tomato paste for just a minute (no longer or it will burn). Then add about a cup of the red wine and deglaze the pan with it, scrapping up all the good bits that stuck to the bottom when cooking the meat.
When the wine reduces by about ½ start adding the canned tomatoes. Add one can of hot water for every can of tomatoes you use.
Now start adding the dried Italian seasonings. I eyeball it but I would guess a good 2 TBS is fine. Add about another ½ cup of red wine, with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir everything into the sauce. It will be very thin at this point.
Add back the cooked meat. Now this is important….at the bottom of the plate you let the meat rest on will be some of the oil and juices that seeped out. Pour that back into the pot. It has a lot of flavor in it.
Bring the sauce back to a boil then turn the heat down low and let it simmer for at least 1 and a half hours, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes to keep it from burning. It should reduce by about a third or a little less and get thicker. The meat will absorb the sauce and get very tender.
When I make meatballs, I don’t fry them, I bake them on a sheet pan. When I do, I add them to the simmering sauce when they’re done so they also absorb the flavor.
I usually make the sauce early in the day and after it’s done, just let it sit on the stove until dinner then I re-heat it. This should make enough sauce for a couple of dinners or good sized lasagna.
And the sauce went onto homemade malloreddus - a Sardinian pasta.
It's great being married to a man who can cook...
Malloreddus
- Sea Salt
- 1 ¼ cups semolina flour
- ¾ cup tipa “00” flour or all-purpose flour
- Extra virgin olive oil
Gnocchi board or a table fork
Dissolve 1 tsp salt in ¾ cup warm water. In a large bowl whisk together semolina and all purpose flour; mound and form a well in the center.
Add water mixture and 2 tsp olive oil to the well. Using your hand or a fork, slowly incorporate flour from inside the rim of the well. Continue until liquid is absorbed, then knead in bowl until dough forms a complete mass (dough will be slightly sticky).
Transfer dough to a well floured work surface and knead, dusting with a bit more flour as needed just to keep dough from sticking to your hands, for 5 minutes. Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
Break off about 1/8 of the dough; tightly rewrap remaining dough. Roll dough into ½ inch cylinder, and cut into ¼ inch thick pieces. Pressing with your thumb, roll each piece on a gnocchi board (or down the back of a fork) to give it the characteristic ridges, and put on a floured baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough.
To cook fresh Malloreddus, bring a large pot of salted water to a bill. Add pasta and cook until tender, about 6 minutes after water returns to a boil. Drain, transfer to a large serving bowl and immediately toss with sauce and serve.
A fresh loaf of bread - store bought, alas, rounded out the meal.
And just as an aside...
I have always felt that food is the great equalizer - that sitting down and enjoying different foods from different countries and cultures can open our minds and our hearts to others different from us.
Go to Chef Google and type in the name of a country and type "recipes" after it. Cook something different. Learn what other people have for breakfast or dinner.
Learn.
Stuffed Tomatoes
The tomatoes are finally coming in - fast and furious! That means time to figure out yet another way to eat them up.
Today, I blended up three gallons of tomato sauce so Victor can make sauce on Wednesday. I'll probably have at least another gallon by then so I'll be doing a lot of canning Wednesday night. I just core and chop and put into the blender - skin and all - and into gallon jugs and into the 'fridge.
I took a couple of the absolute best ones and stuffed them with a wheat berry filling. It was a bit of a clean-out-the-refrigerator salad. My favorite kind.
It had 2 cups of cooked wheat berries - I just put a cup of them in a pot, cover with water, and boil for 20 minutes - along with:
- a diced yellow zucchini
- 1 roasted red pepper
- 2 ears of corn
- scallions
- a small jar of artichoke hearts
- fresh basil, thyme, oregano, and parsely
- S&P
- olive oil
- fig balsamic vinegar
I just hollowed out the tomato and filled it with the salad.
These tomatoes are just so damned good that I am really looking forward to eating them in all of their various guises! There is just no comparison to supermarket tomatoes. None.
I work late tomorrow so I'm thinking of something simple for Wednesday... maybe grilled?!?
We shall see...
Sweet and Savory Tarts
The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts
All on a summer’s day.
The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts
And took them clean away.
The King of Hearts called for the tarts
And beat the Knave full sore.
The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts
And vowed he’d steal no more.
The things that pop into one's mind while one is cooking...
It is reasonably fitting, I guess... I've been called a queen, I did make tarts, and it is a summer's day. Fortunately, no one stole anything or had to be beaten. Score one for the good guys.
The tomatoes are finally coming in at a pretty fast pace - we'll be making a vat of sauce this week - and I'm always looking for different ways to use them. As much as I like it, one does not live by tomato salad, alone.
I also had apricots I wanted to use up in a dessert of sorts...
I headed over to my go-to recipe sites but didn't see anything overly wonderful. I headed over to the Martha Stewart website and found a Tomato Tart recipe that sounded promising. There was also a recipe for an Apricot Tart with Pistachios on Puff Pastry...
My thought process was I could make one batch of dough and use it for both tarts. Heck with the puff pastry. An idea was born... I didn't end up doing either of her recipes, although the apricot tart filling is pretty close. I also added thyme to the pastry for the tomato tart. Both tarts are similar in their making - a filling on the bottom with something on top and something on top of that. Really basic stuff.
I made them one after the other and baked them together.
Pastry Dough for Two Tarts
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 8 oz butter, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 cup ice water
- 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme - hold back and use only for savory tart
In a food processor, add flour, salt, and butter. Process until butter is mixed in well.
With machine running, add most of the water and process with on and off turns until a good dough forms. Divide dough in half. Wrap one half in plastic and refrigerate about 30 minutes. Return the second half to the food processor, add the fresh thyme, and quickly incorporate it into the dough.
Wrap the dough in plastic and place in 'fridge for 30 minutes.
Tomato Tart
- 8 oz porcini mushrooms
- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheeses
- Salt & Pepper
Puree mushrooms and set aside.
Blanche tomatoes to remove skin. Set aside.
Roll out dough and line tart pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Spread mushroom puree over crust.
Top with half of the cheese.
Slice the peeled tomatoes and cover cheese, overlapping them as you go. Generously salt and pepper the tomatoes.
Cover with the remaining cheese and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Place in oven and bake 35 minutes. Remove and cool to room temperature.
Slice and enjoy!
This was really good - really good! The mushrooms added an unexpected flavor and the tomatoes were cooked but still held together. And the cheesy goodness just topped it off. Perfectly crumbly crust...
Yeah... this one worked.
And on to dessert...
Apricot and Pistachio Tart
adapted from Martha Stewart
- 1 1/4 cups unsalted pistachios, chopped, divided
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cube (stick) butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Pinch of salt
- 1 1/4 pounds apricots (about 6), cut into 1/4-inch-thick wedges
- 2 tbsp turbinado sugar
Place 1 cup pistachios and 1/2 cup sugar in food processor. process until pistachios are fairly well chopped. Add butter, egg, and vanilla, and process to a paste.
Roll out dough and line tart pan.
Spread pistachio filling over pastry.
Top with quartered apricots.
Mix remaining 1/4 cup of chopped pistachios with the 2 tbsp turbinado sugar and sprinkle on top.
Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Bake in a preheated 400°F oven for 35 minutes.
Cool and enjoy!
Both of these were really easy to do. The hardest part was cleaning the food processor several times.
The crust is really easy to make and is pretty no-fail. It will also make any double-crusted pie you want to do.
I see more of these in our future...
Stuffed Peppers
It's the garden that keeps on giving - and it really hasn't even started, yet!
While I was busy making desserts and looking at apartments in Barcelona, Victor was in the kitchen making magic with fresh peppers and tomatoes from the garden! It's a wonderful life we lead!
He started with a basic sauce of fresh tomatoes - whooshed in the blender and then cooked with smashed anchovies, garlic, a bit of tomato paste fried with the anchovies and garlic, red wine, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and a handful of pecorino.
The stuffing was ligurian sausage, onion, yellow zucchini, onion, whole grain bread for croutons, garlic, a splash of the tomato sauce, and more pecorino.
Covered, and then into a 375ºF oven for 40 minutes.
Nonna all but licked her plate clean. Mine was so clean from sopping up every morsel with bread that we could have almost put the plate back in the cupboard.
It was molto favoloso!
Dessert to follow.....
More from the Garden
We're finally starting to see some ripe tomatoes - and the green beans are going crazy! We have two blue lake beans and two purple bush beans out there. The purple ones are easy to pick - they're purple. The blue lakes blend in with the stems and leaves making them more difficult to see. They're delicious - but a pain in the ass.
Let's face it - Farmer in the Dell, I'm not. Our little plot needs a lot of work - I can't even imagine twice as much, let alone an actual farm. Once, maybe 30 or 35 years ago, I worked all day with my sister, Arlene, picking honeydew melons in Marysville. I was reasonably young and in reasonably good shape. It almost killed me. I couldn't fathom doing it day-in and day-out for the pittance migrant workers get paid.
I read today that more Mexicans are returning to Mexico than are coming north to work the fields. Some California farmers are paying a lot more for workers - who typically work 50-60 hours a week. Others are letting crops rot for lack of skilled labor to pick. The realities of using minorities as scapegoats.
In the fields picking, sorting... I did it one day. One. No, thank you.
I'll bemoan our little plot and then remember what it was like that one day years ago. Suddenly, it's not so bad!
Today while I was working, Victor made a great green bean and tomato salad with cherry tomatoes from the plant that just decided to grow. It also had thinly sliced red onion, hard-cooked eggs, and freshly-shredded cheese. He made a vinaigrette of olive oil, sherry vinegar, anchovies, garlic, and S&P.
Totally awesome.
It was served with a lightly-floured whitefish, fried in butter and olive oil and a sauce made of white wine, capers, parsley, lemon juice and lemon zest.
Totally awesome, part deux.
It's great being married to a man who loves to cook.
And farm.
Eggplant Danish
I've decided it's time to challenge myself to new ways to cook eggplant.
Eggplant Lasagne, Rolatini, Little Gram's Appetizer... Stuffed Eggplant, Eggplant Caviar... They've been done. Many times.
It's time to start thinking outside of the box, so to speak. And that's how Eggplant Danish came to be!
I was thinking of making a sweet dough for breakfast and left myself a note that just said "make danish." This morning I looked at the note and decided it meant to make a savory danish - with eggplant. I mean - why not, right?!?
Right.
So I set to work. I pulled out my basic sweet dough recipe and thought that it would work as written - with the addition of some chopped herbs. It's a pretty basic recipe and not overly-sweet. I figured I'd keep the sugar for tenderness and just add some herbs to offset.
Eggplant Danish
Dough:
- 2/3 cup milk
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 pkt yeast
- 2 large eggs
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cube (stick) butter
- 2 tbsp chopped assorted herbs (basil, oregano, parsley, chives, mint, etc.)
Lightly warm milk. Stir into mixing bowl with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 packet yeast. Proof about 5 minutes. Add eggs and mix.
Add flour, salt and remaining 4 tbsp sugar, and mix with dough hook.
Add softened butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing well between additions.
Continue to mix for about 5 minutes or until soft dough is formed.
Add chopped herbs and mix well. Dough will be very soft.
Roll into ball and place in buttered bowl to rise until doubled.
Filling:
- 2 medium eggplants
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
- 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh herbs
- Salt & Pepper
- 1 cup chopped roasted hot peppers
- 1 cup shredded asiago cheese
- 1/4 cup Dry Marsala
Peel and dice eggplant. Mix eggplant with olive oil and place on a lined baking pan. Roast in a 375°F oven for about 45 minutes or until soft and well-cooked.
When slightly cooled, place in food processor with garlic, herbs, cheese, marsala, and S&P to taste. Set aside to cool completely.
To Assemble:
Roll out dough on a floured board. Dough will be very soft.
Spread with cooled eggplant mixture.
Scatter roasted hot peppers atop eggplant.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Roll from long end, jelly-roll-style. Slice into rolls, 1 1/2" to 2" wide and place on greased cookie sheet. They will be soft and slightly messy. Just go for it.
Top with chopped pistachios, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise, again, about 30 minutes.
Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for about 25 minutes.
Let cool and enjoy.
They came out ridiculously good! The dough is really light and the flavors just work without any underlying sweetness. There's the subtle eggplant, the cheese, the herbs, the crunch of the pistachios... We are pleased with this one!
We already dived into them but they're really going to work tonight with roasted chicken and sweet potatoes...
What's next?!?