You Can Never Have Too Much Garlic

I purchased an irresistibly speckled eggplant from the farmer's market on Saturday, even though I had no end-product in mind. It's been staring me down from its shelf on the fridge ever since, so I figured I'd put it out of its misery and turn it into Roasted Eggplant and White Bean Crostini (pg 22). I had no baguette, so this was less of a crostini and more of a spread for crackers.

This seems to be becoming the norm with Giada at Home, but this recipe was super easy. Cube an eggplant, toss it with oil, salt, and pepper, and roast it until it's golden. Process it with cannellini beans, parsley, lemon juice, and garlic. Add olive oil until it's smooth. That's it.

Not the most photogenic dip, is it?

The recipe only actually calls for one garlic clove, but I used three. I was afraid I'd overdone it, but my in-laws loved it, as did Charlie, which SHOCKED me. He kept licking crackers clean and handing them back to me for re-schmearing. I mean, this was really garlicky. I would tone it back in the future, but the roasty eggplant flavor did still manage to fight its way through.

Conclusion: Liked it.

My father-in-law flipped through Ready For Dessert, and ooohed over a recipe for Peach-Amaretti Crisp (pg 102). That was pretty much all the instigation I needed to plan for it before they leave on Saturday. Unfortunately, the peaches I bought were bad. They smelled good when I bought them, and I thought that they'd soften up over a few days. They did not. They were nearly as crisp as an apple. My thumb got quite the workout trying to wrest eight peach pits from the flesh's greedy suction grip.

If I had good peaches, this would have been one hell of a dessert. Delicious almondy Amaretti cookies that are food-processed with toasted almonds, flour, sugar, butter, etc, make the topping really special. Did you know that the flavor of authentic amaretti cookies is from apricot kernels, not almonds? I didn't. Good to know, David Lebovitz. Good to know.

Conclusion: Everyone else at the table loved this and thought that the peaches were just fine, but this is my blog, and I get the last word. Mwa ha haaaa! I have to put this on the low end of the "liked" column, but I found the still-tough, not-so-sweet peaches to be very detrimental. With juicy, ripe peaches, this would be great.