Guest Post: Caroline's BSI Submission

I received this BSI submission from a reader and was so impressed with the entry, that I asked her if I could post the e-mail as a guest post and she happily agreed. If any other reader out there would like to participate in this week’s BSI competition I will be happy to post your entry online for you as a guest post. Please e-mail me at graduatemeghann@gmail.com if you’re interested! J

Hi Meghann!

My name is Caroline, and I’m a non-blogger, slash lurker :D, from Southern California.  I just discovered this blog world about a month or so ago, and I absolutely love it!  I graduated from college in May, moved back home and have been experimenting and making a mess of my kitchen.  From reading these blogs, I’ve tried new foods, new recipes, and twisted up some of the boring regular stuff I already ate!!  Everyone seems so friendly and helpful, with a lot of common goals and interests! 

 Anyways, onto this BSI contest.  I was SOO excited to read your rules, seeing as I didn’t think “non-bloggers” could enter!!  I feel so included!  🙂  So today, I went out and purchased a pretty purple eggplant, sat and stared at it, waiting for it to inspire me.  I grabbed some cherry tomatoes and lemons from my backyard, so awesomely home grown!!  So here is a little photo-montage of my BSI creation:  Roasted Eggplant-Tomato-Pepper Tapenade! 

1.  Gatherings from the yard (also a pomegranate thrown in there, I have a tree how cool is that!?  Didn’t go in the tapenade though 🙂

2.  Chopped up Eggplant, tomatoes, red bell pepper, and onion tossed in olive oil, salt/pepper ready for oven

3. Chopped Veggies, garlic cloves, tomato paste and lemon juice ready for grinding with a handy hand blender!

4.  The finished product all blended and ready for crackers, carrots, whatever!!  SO delicious!

5.  Me!  With some leftovers in tupperware and the hand blender!  I figured it’s always more fun to “know”, or at least see, who is making this stuff!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 or whole Eggplant, chopped
• 1 chopped Red Bell Pepper
• 1 cup sliced tomatoes (any kind will do, I used cherry)
• 1/4 chopped yellow onion
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• salt/pepper to taste 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Chop up eggplant, tomatoes, pepper and onion and place on aluminum foil (sprayed with cooking spray)
3. Drizzle olive oil and salt and pepper, put in oven for 15 minutes, turning once, until they look roasted and smell good!
4. Take roasted veggies out, put in a large bowl, add lemon juice, tomato paste and chopped garlic, use a hand blender (or preferably food processor!) and pulse until blended together

Ta da!!  Sorry if this email is super long!  I was seriously soo excited to join in on the BSI fun, I’ve never even HAD eggplant before, how crazy is that!!  This was a really fun project for me, and thanks again for including the non-bloggers.  It’s funny how I started off reading one blog, slowly two, then three, now I check about 10 every day!  I really think it’s helped me improve my confidence in the kitchen, and makes the world seem a lot smaller if that makes sense.  Now I’m off to clean up my disastrous kitchen, and try out that hand blender on some more crazy things!! 😀  See ya!

Caroline

Thank you, Caroline, for a great entry! This looks AMAZING and I can not wait to try and recreate this on my own!!