Experiments

Today I decided that I needed to cook the eggplant in my fridge so I looked around online at various recipes and decided to prepare it Moroccan style. I used a couple of recipes as a guide and came up with my own creation. I peeled and chopped the eggplant and put it in a skillet along with 1 can diced tomatoes, 2 chopped fresh plum tomatoes, 3 tsp minced garlic, 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro, 1/4 c chopped fresh parsley, 1/2 tbsp paprika, 1/2 tbsp cumin, 1 1/2 tsp salt, dash of cayenne, 1/4 c olive oil and 1/4 c water. Some recipes I saw called for even more spices, but I was too nervous. Everything looked great in the skillet!

I cooked it covered for about 30 minutes, then mashed the eggplant and cooked uncovered for 20-30 minutes to cook down the liquid. The final product was colorful and smelled great. I served it over whole wheat couscous. The taste was fine but it was a little too salty and the spices were overpowering even though I reduced them! I would definitely try this again, using less salt and spices.


Later this evening, I had a serious craving for chocolate cake....I mean serious. So serious that I decided to dig up a microwave chocolate cake recipe I have seen and give it a try. Now I am a baking snob so I was skeptical of this concoction but desperate enough to make it. If you google "microwave chocolate cake" you'll find tons of hits with variations on this recipe (some people use hot cocoa mix, some omit the chocolate chips, etc):
Ingredients:1 Tall Coffee Mug
4 Tablespoons flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons baking cocoa
1 Egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
3 Tablespoons chocolate chips

After you mix all of the dry ingredients, you add the rest and stir completely. Then microwave it for 3 minutes.
Afraid of having the cake explode out of a coffee mug, I made it in a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup. The finished cake looked like this:

It tasted ok, but really not great and after a few bites, I was done. By far the best part was the gooey melted chocolate chips at the bottom of the cup that coated the cake. So, it was an experimental evening in the kitchen and neither project was great but neither was a totally failure. I'm just proud that I got a nice dinner on the table on a night when I got home late!