Happy New Year everyone!
It’s so good to be back from the Holiday ‘Break’. I hope you’re all well 🙂
I’m brimming with ideas for the blog and this brand over the next 12 months and I’ve already started rolling them out. Firstly my Patreon page, where you can directly support my content development and receive exclusive benefits for as little as $1USD/month!
Secondly, my newly launched Twitch channel!
I’ll be live-streaming on Twitch 3x a week, with at least one cooking stream scheduled within any given week.
My schedule will be posted there as well as available replays. I’m still working out some of the kinks but I’m really happy and excited with what I have done there so far.
This Sunday I’ll be making Trinidadian Coconut Bake, using the linked recipe. Feel free to tune in and cook along! I’d love to have you there 🙂
However this post is about the recipe I prepared for my Debut Stream!
This Eggplant Vegetable Medley is a vegetarian/vegan dish that can be served both hot or cold. I serve it as a main dish alongside a fried egg and brown rice, however you can leave off the egg if you want the dish to remain vegan, or you can add sausage or ground beef if you feel you really need a meat component.
Prepared in the Instant Pot it takes little time to come together. Watch me bring it together below, and then give it a try yourself! xo
(If the public video link has expired, do note that all videos are permanently archived on my Patreon and available to members for as little as $1/month)
- 1 large eggplant, cubed (or 2 medium)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 medium green or red bell pepper, cut into strips
- 1 cup black olives
- 1 onion
- 2 medium potatoes, cubed
- 3 medium tomatoes, cubed
- 1 tbsp raisins, rehydrated and squeezed
- 1 bunch fresh mint
- balsamic vinegar
- salt
- pepper
- Put the eggplant in a strainer and sprinkle the cubes with salt. To get all of the bitter liquid out: add a plate on top of the cubed eggplant and some kind of weight on top of that to push it down (I used a small cast iron saucepan). Leave them to rest for about half an hour
- In the meantime, wash and slice the other vegetables as indicated
- In the pre-heated pressure cooker, on high heat without the lid, add the olive oil an brown the vegetables, adding them in the following order, stirring them constantly with a wooden spoon.
- First, add the eggplant and potatoes (wait 3 minutes but keep stirring), peppers and onions (wait another 3 minutes and keep stirring.
- Finally, add half the chopped mint, raisins, olives, salt and pepper to taste.
- If you’re using an electric pressure cooker that requires more than 1/2 cup of water to reach pressure, add one cup of water. Otherwise use 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water. If you can get away with 1/4 cup of water that is ideal as the eggplant will spring a lot of water.
- Close the lid and set the valve to pressure cooking position.
- Cook for 4 minutes at high pressure.
- When time is up, open the pressure cooker with the Normal Pressure Release.
- Transfer the contents of the pressure cooker to a serving dish immediately.
- Mix in the tomatoes and dress with fresh olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- Garnish with the remaining mint.
How cute are these ‘latkes’? 🙂 I have to put the quotation marks because they are neither fried, nor flat (oh the sacrilege!). But… they are so light, crisp and flavourful that I can’t get too worked up so do ignore my faux outrage 🙂
) is instead oven-baked, in muffin tins no less!. The result is perfectly round bites of crunchy potato goodness with just enough creaminess in the middle to give you that oh so satisfying sense of indulgence!
” I decided to make a batch of Aloo Tiki. But I didn’t know what alcoholic beverage to serve them with. I had read that beer goes well with Indian food however I’m not a huge fan of beer, and further more beer isn’t a cocktail (which is a requirement for Blog Party participation). Then I got the idea of a shandy, and that was when my imagination went wild! I knew I wanted a citrus vibe, to accompany the tang of beer and to also cut through the potato taste. I think the concoction I came up is beyond sublime. I’ve already drank the whole pitcher! 😳
If I was to host a Tropical Thanksgiving, what would I serve? That question has been in my head with all the Thanksgiving promotions on the US television channels. So, for this post I thought that I would troll the ol blogosphere for Thanksgiving recipes with an ‘island twist’ that all can enjoy! It seems (from the telly) that everyone in the US celebrates Thanksgiving regardless of race, religion or creed, I find that really interesting. In my 5 years there I only ever experienced Thanksgiving once (my first year) so I was not really aware of how pervasive it is. Even though we don’t have 4 seasons here (so phrases like fall and harvest are moot) I am a huge fan of pumpkin, squash, and roasted meats 🙂 nyam nyam nyam! .. so without further delay here is my ‘Island’ Thanksgiving roundup, and hey