Making plans with Nigel
I love Nigel Slater. As a writer I admire his voice and technique and as an eater I adore his food. I recently picked up The Kitchen Diaries and when I need inspiration I burrow about in the index, looking for entries dealing with whatever it is that I have to cook. For me, at least most of the time, what I cook is determined by what is fresh and good, either from the CSA box or the FM. Today I turned to the cheese entry in the index and there was an entry for baked eggplant with goat cheese. Ding, ding, ding, ding, we’ve got a winner since I have eggplant and goat cheese on hand.
Mr. Slater favors the rustic, soulful food that really makes us geeks happy, so I pretty much followed his lead on this. I slice the eggplant into thick rounds, brushed each side with olive oil, placed them on a baking sheet covered with parchment, tossed some salt and pepper on them, and put them into a 400F oven. Nigel dressed his eggplant with olive oil, feta, mint, and pine nuts but I used olive oil, garlic, chevre, basil, and pistachios…different flavor profile but same concept. Nigel served his with pita bread but I opted for fresh fettuccine that I whipped up as the eggplant roasted. It all came together in about 30 minutes and it was a bowlful of cheesy, aubergine love. Thanks for the inspiration Nigel…I’ll make my dinner plans with you any day.
One year ago I began this blog…what I thought might be a way to combine my love of food and writing and record some recipes for future use. Now I’ve written 184 posts and you’ve written 732 comments. I’ve learned a lot about cooking, writing, and blogging. I started with GH as my only reader and I’m now getting about 500 unique visits a day and that just seems incredible to me. Thanks for reading and stick around for another year…it’ll be delicious, I promise.
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5 Responses to “Making plans with Nigel”
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congratulations on your one year anniversary of blogging!
i only just discovered your blog, but i think it’s wonderful. i look forward to sharing the next year with you and your lovely recipes!
Happy anniversary!
I love eggplant in any way, shape or form. Those crispy rounds look very tasty!
Happy blog birthday! This is a great post to celebrate it with!
One year, 184 posts, that’s damn good! You average almost a post every other day. I wish I was geeky enough to keep up that pace.
It’s blogs like yours that want to keep me writing mine, so keep going so I can, too!
Happy Blogiversary!