Good Eating: Eggplant Kiku & Sprout Salad

"Kiku is a Persian or Arabic dish that has many variations.  It came to Spain during the Moorish invasions where it took the form of the Spanish tortilla or Spanish omelet, with potatoes as a filling." (p.440 Nourishing Traditions)

The ingredients for Eggplant Kiku are:

• 2 eggplants
• sea salt
• 2 onions
• extra virgin olive oil
• 6 eggs
• 3 cloves of garlic
• juice of one lemon
• pepper 
• paprika

Without copying the recipe verbatim from my Nourishing Traditions cook book, I'll give you a brief layout of the recipe.

The first and most time consuming step is to salt the peeled and cubed eggplant.  Let it sit, draining in a colander for an hour or so.

Next, after the hour is up, rinse and drain the eggplant well and...

saute it in olive oil until soft.  When it's soft, mash it with a potato masher or something like that in another bowl.  (I forgot to take this pic... pardon that)

In the same pan you sauteed the eggplant, saute the onions until they look yummy (transparent and browning) then add the mashed eggplants and the garlic.

(Also forgot this picture...eek!) - Beat the eggs with some salt, the pepper, lemon juice and the paprika, add it all to the eggplant/onion/garlic mixture.

Next, pour the mixture into an oiled baking dish (I used a 9x13 baking dish) and bake for 30 minutes or so in a 375*F oven until its just browning on top.  Take it out of the oven, serve it up however you would like!

I served mine with a sprout salad using freshly sprouted sprout, and a homemade sesame ginger dressing (interested in the recipe? Leave a comment to let me know!), garnished with garden fresh tomatoes and freshly ground pepper.  In the picture above, I sprinkled my husbands with Parmesan cheese!  Every bite was delicious!  Try it and let me know what you think about it!

Happy cooking!

While I Was On The Farm With My Mom...

Yes!  Those are chicken feet!  Excellent for making rich chicken broth!  Chicken feet broth is full of nutrients like collagen, glucosamine chondroitin, gelatin, minerals and much more!  All things that our bodies absolutely need!  I prepared these two pairs of feet myself, which is far from where I came from ( as you may know, I spent lots of years eating a vegan and/or vegetarian diet ).  That all changed when I started feeling like I wasn't getting ALL the nutrients my body needed in order to do what it needs to do to reproduce, and pretty much... function well.

As a quick side note, an awesome blog called Nourished Kitchen has a wonderful recipe for making stock from chicken feet.  Check it out!

My mom lives in a small town called Calimesa where if you buy a house, it will probably be an older one with some property.  Her property is just under a half an acre and she has ducks, a goat, lots of chickens, a goose, dogs, cats, fish, a bird, and her gardening.  I know this is relatively small compared to the country, but for the city, it's great!  We eat the eggs and now, for the health benefits of eating organic, pastured meats, the chickens, and soon the ducks!  So that is what we did today!  We butchered two chickens, well, one rooster and one hen.  It was very humane and quite interesting!  Here is a video snip of the "crime scene" where the killing and feathering was already done and my mom is TCBing ( Taking Care of Business ).  If you have a weak stomach or are an animal rights activist, do not watch as you will have lots to complain about...  Following the video, I will put up a picture of the forming eggs that were taken out of the hen... super, super interesting if the video is too much for you.

That is my mom.  She is such a wonderful lady.  She is a cancer survivor from age 13 when she had to have her right leg amputated.  She finds lots of strength in things like what we "city" folk call farming.  I, on the other hand, try to find all of my strength in Jesus, when I get myself out of the way.
Here is a photo of the egg development progression inside of a hen.  All of these came from one hen and there were more attached on the inside that didn't come out.  Fascinating if you ask me!

Sorry, I had to make the picture huge!

So that was an interesting event huh?!  Butchering chickens ( Humanely! And for our food!) has now been qualified as quality time with my momma!  Thank You Lord for the life You gave us and for the food You provide!

Sincerely,
Candace