Curing the Blahs

Today was a blah day. Just felt really blah. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe its my aching leg muscles. Had to cancel my personal training session. Blah. Had some major brainstorming for food for work this week, and had a blah day at Whole Paycheck. First, it was cold and crappy out. Second, I accidentally bought cilantro instead of parsley for the pesto I was going to make. Third, I was completely unmotivated to make the lasagna noodles for the lasagna I was going to make for the week. So I found myself standing in my kitchen, staring at an eggplant and cilantro, and figured I make do. I started with figuring out a way to make pesto anyway. Hmm. Well, cilantro pesto would be great, but not for lasagna. Maybe to slather in a taco. Blah.

Kind of robot-like, I started with a recipe for parsley and walnut pesto pulled out of an old Cooking Light magazine. And then it hit me. It was genius. I eyed the baby spinach in my fridge. Spinach is green. So is pesto. And slowly but surely, a fragrant Spinach Rosemary Walnut Pesto was born. This is a nice change from the typical pestos, the walnut adds a wonderful richness to the pesto and the pungent rosemary shines through.


I threw 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, 1 tbsp olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, 4 cloves of garlic chopped, 1 cup of fresh baby spinach, 1 tsp rosemary, 1 tsp dried basil, and salt and pepper to taste into my mini-food chopper and pulverized it until it resembled pesto. I finally figured out how to do a screen shot of the nutritional information! This is the nutritional information for 3 servings.

Because I was feeling to blah to make lasagna noodles, I decided to grill slices of eggplant on my George Foreman grill with no oil to get the char marks, and use those in place of noodles. Besides, they fit perfectly into my round tupperwares so I could make several mini-"lasagnas" for work. For the picture, though, I decided to cut the eggplant into quarters and have since concluded this would also make a great starter. Anyway, Grilled Eggplant with Sweet Potato and Rosemary Pesto may become a new staple. The thick slices of eggplant pair perfectly with creamy ricotta cheese blended with the pesto and cooked sweet potato. The sweet potato and rosemary in the pesto offset each other perfectly and the bright flavor of tomato draws everything together. This dish can be served cold or warm.


Anyway, take 1 regular eggplant and cut it into 1/4 inch discs. Grill for about 4 minutes on a George Foreman grill until you get nice grill marks. While the eggplant is grilling, mix together 1 cup part skim ricotta cheese, 1 small sweet potato cooked and mashed (I just threw mine in the microwave for 6 minutes then removed the skin), and about half the pesto recipe. Have 1 can of no salt added crushed tomatoes open and ready to go. Thats it.

Put a small spoonful of crushed tomato down, then place a piece of grilled eggplant on top. Put a generous dollop of the ricotta mixture on top, and top with more tomato. Repeat. I usually did towers of 4 pieces of eggplant, and then the top eggplant, I just spooned some tomato on top and grated with parmesan cheese. This makes four servings (and the serving size is about four times bigger than the photo -- I had to do the presentation piece with a straggler piece of eggplant) and the nutritional information includes the pesto as well.