What I Made This Week: Eggplant and Green Bean Stir-Fry

The eggplant this year has been glorious!  I keep seeing pictures all over Facebook of friends and pages that I follow with gorgeous purple orbs – sometimes coming out of their ears!

I really like eggplant.  It’s not my favorite food or anything, but since becoming a member with the Monroe’s I have learned a few tricks on preparing it that I think makes it really delicious.

This week I used one of our eggplants and lots of last week’s green beans to make a delicious stir-fry.

I based the recipe on this one, the only real difference is that I used sliced, seeded eggplant instead of the steak.  It was a hit.

First I peeled and sliced the eggplant.  Then I used a spoon to scrape out the majority of the seeds.  You lose some flesh when you do this, but the seeds are where the bitterness is in the eggplant.

You have to work pretty quickly with eggplant, and just sort of accept that it is going to oxidize (turn brown).  But I have noticed that the striped ones we’ve been getting seem to oxidize more slowly that the other varieties.

I finished the stir-fry by adding a good big handful of the cinnamon-basil from this week’s share, and serving it with coconut rice.

Eggplant and Green Bean Stir-Fry with Coconut Rice

Prepare the coconut rice:  to 1-¼ cups jasmine rice add one can of coconut milk plus 1 cup of water to a sauce pan.  Cover, bring to a boil,and reduce the heat to steam the rice for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and keep covered for 5 more minutes. 

For the Stir-Fry:
2 tsp vegetable or safflower oil
1 large eggplant, peeled, seeded and sliced into bite-size pieces.
1 pound of green beans, trimmed
3-4 TBS minced, peeled ginger  (you can used powdered in a pinch, but fresh tastes much better)
4-5 small or 3 big (Monroe size) cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
2 TBS fish sauce or soy sauce
1 cup fresh basil, leaves only

Heat oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat.  add the eggplant and the green beans, along with the ginger and garlic.  Saute for 5-6 minutes until the green beans start to turn bright green and are still crisp-tender.  Add fish sauce and basil, and continue to saute for another 1-2 minutes.  Serve with coconut rice.

What did you make this week?

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Anisa has been a member with the Monroe’s since 2008 as both a working member and a non-working member. She and her family enjoy a full share.  Read more from Anisa at The Lazy Homesteader.