Fresh Japanese Eggplant from the Garden of a Friend

Today I had lunch with an old friend of mine from school and with her gluten allergy, we had to determine what she could and couldn't have.

I am fortunate that I don't have food allergies and my friend is fortunate that she is able to manage her food allergies with her a lot of better and a lot more places know a lot more about gluten intolerance than they use to.

We chose to have Vietnamese food and even though things were rice based, sauces tend to be a concern for the one with allergies.  Fortunately, the sauces predominately used in Vietnamese food are gluten free.

After lunch, we went by her house for her to get ready for work.  She showed me around her newly landscaped yard and had me sample some of the goodies that the yard produced.  I tried out a couple of different varieties of strawberries, super sweet, and took home some of the overabundance of Japanese eggplant from her yard.

Fortunately, I don't mind Japanese eggplant and it is one of the few veggies with a high protein content that allows vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike to take part in a tasty vegetable.  That is assuming one likes vegetables or eggplant.

As far as this batch of fresh Japanese eggplant is concerned, I'm at a loss as to what to do with it for now.  Fortunately, the boyfriend is at class tonight so I took off cooking detail so I have some time to figure it out.

Spinach is Tasty

The boyfriend returned from Japan, and was craving something non-Japanese.  A friend of mine also had just recently moved to Austin, and I was feeling nostalgic for a dish that she always craved with a mutual friend who is Peruvian.

The boyfriend requested spinach and so I prepared a Peruvian spinach pesto.

Not bad, just had a hard time getting the Peruvian spinach pesto to stick to the spaghetti for some odd reason.  Nevertheless, it was a good welcoming home dinner for the boyfriend.