- My Humble Homage to the Beautiful Berenjena
I adore aubergines, so when my first two aubergines were ripe for picking, I decided to treat them with the love that they deserved.
It was a very simple dish, especially if you already have some tomato sauce made. If not, fry up a little garlic, add some chopped tomatoes, a slug of red wine and some basil then season and simmer.
I sliced my aubergines (eggplant) and grilled them on the barbecue until smoky and tender. Then I put them on an oven tray and layered them with pesto, cheese, tomato sauce and basil leaves.
Then I popped it all into a hot oven for about 10 minutes until the cheese had softened (it was a very hard goat´s cheese, so it didn´t really melt!).
Finally I drizzled some basil oil over, poured myself a glass of rosé and sat back to pay homage to my first little purple beauties of the summer.
Chica Andaluza 
Delicious! A perfect homage to your first aubergines 🙂 I’m hungry now!
Hope you got something to eat!
Perfect! Nothing like the first aubergines of the summer and knowing there are a lot more to come. And all these flavours are made for each other – aubergine, tomato, basil, olive oil, goats’ cheese.
All the best of the summer, and you´re right, they´re made for each other!
Ha, I love doing this. But I only do the cheese, not the sauce. I’ll have to try that sometime. Your eggplants look wonderful.
It´s a bit like a cheat´s Melenzane alla Parmigiana…!
Lovely dish ! The best for a summer evening !
Indeed, lots of gorgeous flavours together.
Lovely eggplants my dear!
Why thank you!!
I don’t know what to say:
Simple but Amazing.
or
Simply Amazing.
I’ll say both. 🙂
Aah – so I´ll say thank you and ¡gracias!
No hay de que, señora 🙂
…oh my god, is that correct? I still pretend I know Spanish ….. at least one day I used to know it….. :-s
Está completamente corecto! ¡Enhorabuena!
Oh lovely. I have trouble cooking aubergines, and I don’t know why! I sure am good at eating them, though! Love this idea!
They are quite funny little things to cook. I have often set fire to an extra thin slice by accident!
Well, I’ve never done *that* (grin)… but they rarely come out as expected! Here’s the *one* recipe (so far at least!) that works for me: no-fail eggplant Its a bit more “wintery” but its awfully good…
You´re a sfarer cookt na me then! Am off now to check out your recipe as have just picked four more which I need to cook…thanks!
Those eggplants are true beauties
I love love love the recipe..will have to try it soon
I love eggplants and when I opened this post I was so shocked as I just made a dish so similar to this!! You will see it posted soon; a bit different and I’m now going to try out yours with the sauce! Lucky you to have these in your garden!
they look amazing! Well done on producing something not only pretty to look at, but I am sure great to eat 🙂
Mmmm…I love grilled eggplant. So simple and delicious. 🙂
Me too, and my garden is now producing loads of them!
Those berenjenas look bien “guapas”!!! When you said hard goat cheese, it reminded me of the great goat cheeses I had when I went to Spain !!! I am thinking Manchego!!!Uhhmmmm muy rico!!!
When you think of Mediterranean food, one of the first things that comes to my mind are tomatoes and aubergines. Simple and oh so flavorful…it’s a dish I love.
Beautiful berenjenas! I took some pictures of some growing today and am making an aubergine curry tonight. This looks like a really simple tasty dish, might have to do the grilling on my trusty griddle pan!!
Get that grill pan out! I adore aubergine curry. Actually, I pretty much adore aubergine anything 🙂
I love eggplants! you should try marcella hazan’s tomato sauce! 3 ingredients: can of whole tomatoes, onion, and butter and it takes less than an hour! I did a post on it here: http://shecooksandheeats.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/i-want-me-some-meatballs-and-spaghetti/. Please check it out and let me what you think! I’m new to blogging, and I love that there’s a foodie community. Please let me know if you have any advice 🙂
Sounds good although I´d use olive oil instead of butter – there´s a huge food community here, have fun with your blogging. Will go and check out your blog in a moment!
It must be delicious! I’ve bookmarked the post. Tanya, you have so many vegetable recipes I adore. Are you a vegetarian?
Glad you liked it Olga! No, I am a devoted meat and fish eater. We grow most of our own veg and I enjoy doing things with it as when we eat out here (bizarrely as the veg is so good) the restaurants only ever offer very dull salads and chips….I wanted to introduce my Big Man to new things other than over cooked beans and boring salads. it seems to be working!
Thank you for this recipe, and hope for more, I am just starting to use the lovely little creatures, so far I wonder how come I had not eaten them until recently? ….RaeDi
Big Man is still not a convert…I´m hoping that one day I´ll find the perfect recipe that will tip him over into my camp!
Looks AMAZING! Adding this recipe to the top of my list of things I have to try! Your blog is amazing!
Thank you so much! Have just had a peek at some of your amazing photos – you are a very talented lady.