Blintzes and Stuffed Eggplant

The Food Nanny
August26,27 2008
Meal 1: Savory Red Pepper and Pear Blintzes, Rosemary and Sweet Corn Rice Salad, Melon Salad
· Bring the crepes up to room temp, and warm the pepper mixture in a pan or microwave. Divide the filling evenly among the crepes placing the filling in the center of each crepe, shaping the pile into a rectangle. Fold the sides in first to almost the middle, and then roll the blintz by bringing the bottom edge to the middle and rolling the whole package tightly. It’s easier to do than explain.
· Serve the rice at room temp or warmed briefly in a sauté pan with a little oil and then a few drops of water.
· Enjoy the melon chilled.

Meal 2: Eggplant Stuffed with Moroccan Spiced Beef or Tofu, Radiatore with Garlic and Chard
· Bake the eggplant rolls at 350° until the sauce is bubbly. Cook 5 minutes more.
· Serve the pasta at room temp or warmed briefly in a sauté pan with a little oil and then a few drops of water.

Trivia: What is a chutney?

Blintzes are an old world delicacy - really just stuffed crepes- that like most foods have been bastardized or omitted from our culinary lexicon. They are traditionally filled with pie filling or sweetened cheese and topped with sour cream. But they certainly lend them selves well to a savory filling as well. This week I tried something of a compromise: getting sweetness out of something traditionally considered savory - the pepper.

This variety of pepper is called Jimmy Nardello's Italian. It is an heirloom variety that is gaining noteriety. The fruits are long and thin, and they are a bit seedy for their size, but their flavor is really quite rewarding. They are a great kitchen garden variety in that should you be cooking and suddenly get possessed with the need for something red, sweet, and easy to add to a one meal portion you can just sprint out and grab a couple of Jimmy's sweet peppers from their plant.

We coupled the pepper with sugar, vinegar, and a base of early pears from the market to make a sweet, but tangy filling for the blintzes. We hope you enjoyed them.

The stuffed eggplant is the opposite reversal: making something savory sweet. I think the Middle-Eastern and Mediterranian-African cuisines are masters of this. By combining eggplant and beef with herbs, dried currants, toasted almonds, aromatic spices, and a tomato sauce suffused with the earthy notes of cinnamon, cumin, and turmeric we tried to create a dish that was both substantial as wellas etherial. Ultimately I find these combinations, like cayenne spiced honey, or rice and golden raisins, olive oil, and crisped lamb to be among the most sultry of cuisines.

Trivia Answer: The three sisters are the Native Americal companion planting arrangement of corn, beans, and squash. Your soup last week featured corn and squash. The significance of this arrangement is that it offers remarkable lessons in agro-ecology, ethnobotony, nutrition, and common sense. The arrangement was widespread throughout the Americas and, of course was as diverse as the geography itself. What may be most significant about it is how it transformed world cuisines. Always remember that corn, beans, and squashes ( including cucumbers and melons) are all New World crops, along with potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, exported to Europe, Asia, and Africa where their impact has been considerable, to say the least. I implore you to look further into the origins of our foods, and the looming fates of their varietal diversities.