Desensitivity and Eggplant

You know when you've fully taken to a kind of food when you really don't care if it's sub-par. It goes for pizza and tacos. So it should go for fruits and vegetables, but it often doesn't. But are we to blame? Perhaps that artichoke just doesn't taste right, or those grapes are a little mushy. The key is to love the food first by getting the good-quality stuff first, and preparing it well. It may mean pairing it with food you already love. My mom used to make delicious broccoli topped with cheese. I also remember her getting very skimpy on the cheese later on. Now, I just cook broccoli with a little salt and pepper, and it tastes fine to me, whether I get a good piece of broccoli or not. I had created a food desensitivity. So, try buying decent quality fruits or vegetables that you are a little more sensisitive to, and prepare it in ways that you think you might like. Remember, just because you didn't like the eggplant at the restaurant doesn't necessarily mean you don't like eggplant. You probably didn't like the way it was prepared. So peel the bitter skin and cook it with chickpeas and tomato sauce, or roast it and mash the inside with tahini or peanut butter and garlic. Look at ethnic recipes. Keep trying to like a food. And when you do like it, try to create a desensitivity (But don't eat too much and get sick of it!). It's part of a lifestyle change. The difference between the baby food diet and this desensitizing is that the developed eating habits and preferences often stay with you until the end. Baby food should be for when you are a toothless baby or a very old person (You can put it into spaghetti sauce for more concentrated nutrients. This is a good idea. Just don't live off it.).


Roasted Eggplant/Babaganoush:
Preheat oven to 500 F. Let the eggplant roast for about 40 minutes (don't pierce or poke it because you want the eggplant "oil" to stay inside), until you can pierce the skin easily with a knife. Clumsily get the eggplant into a bowl or plate. Cut off the head and take the skin off. Crush two or three cloves of garlic and mash it into the eggplant. Mash in more than one tablespoon of tahini or whatever nut butter you'd like. Tahini is classic, but you could probably get creative or cheap and use peanut butter. Keep mashing. Shake in cumin for a extra roasted flavor, as well as a little salt and pepper. Mash until it really looks like a consistent mush. Ah, eggplant. You can use it as a dip, or a kind of "gravy". I like to eat it with anything and by itself.

Calories: about 275 or 300 for an entire eggplant and two tablespoons of tahini
Cost: well, about 1.75 for an eggplant and the tahini varies, but was free for me as it was a gift (let us say it was about 30 cents for the two tablespoons). So maybe $2 for the whole thing. It should keep well for about five days in the refridgerator, though it is usually gone by day one (the taste improves even more after a day or two).


Okay, there's another eggplant dish, "Egyptian" style, that I don't know how to cook properly, so I will do some research and experimenting for another post, another day.