…from the Starters and Light Lunches section of Delicious Dishes for Diabetics:
This tasty seasonal starter is useful for company it as you can prepare it beforehand–it makes regular appearances through the summer.
(A couple of ripe cherry tomatoes will add colour to the plate in a month or so.)
Serves 4
2 large aubergines
salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2–3 tbsp wine vinegar
Sauce:
3–4 cloves of garlic – crushed with a little salt
60 g/2 oz walnuts – shelled; if you do this yourself, take care that no pieces of shell get left with the kernel.
a handful chopped parsley
- Wash and cut the aubergines lengthwise into 1.5 cm/1/2 inch slices.
- Salt them slightly and put them in a colander for an hour or so, to drain off some of their bitter juice.
- Dry them thoroughly and brush generously with olive oil on both sides.
Heat the oven at 240°C/475°F/Gas Mark 9.
- Put the aubergines on well-oiled foil in a shallow oven tray.
- Cook them in the oven for about 20 minutes to brown them, turning after 10 minutes.
- While the aubergines are in the oven, make the sauce.
- Mix the crushed garlic with a tablespoon of olive oil.
- Chop the walnuts in a processor or pound them in a pestle and mortar.
- Combine these two ingredients with the parsley in a bowl and add another tablespoon of oil.
- Mix well and check for salt.
- Take the aubergines out of the oven, put them on a serving plate, brush with the vinegar and spread the delicious sauce on top.
- Serve warm or room temperature.
Robin Ellis 
Sounds wonderful. I love eggplant, and any new recipe for it is appreciated.
Long time Poldark fan and fellow thespian from Maryland, USA here Robin!
I adore eggplant and am ALWAYS looking for different ways to prepare it. This sounds like a real winner! Please keep experimenting. I have developed a baked eggplant parm recipie which is pretty good.
Congratulations on your cookbook! I love reading your blogs. You and Meredith (she is a sweetie!) appear to have such an idyllic life. I can’t get enough of your cat pictures and stories. I have two crazy felines myself. . They do impose themselves upon us in a loving way, don’t they? I really identified with the “cat stuck in a tree story!” My polydactyl boy, Claude, got up so high into an Oak tree that he was there for over 12 hours. I had to get a PROFESSIONAL TREE CLIMBING SERVICE to get him down! They had boots with spikes like the loggers out in Washington state! It’s a Good thing they were cheap and did it as a service to the Humane Society. I was a mess!
As an American who watched Masterpiece Theatre RELIGIOUSLY on PBS, Poldark was right up there with Upstairs Downstairs. You and your supurb cast gave life to Winston Graham’s wonderful novels.
I am trying to eat healthier since diabetes runs heavily on my Father’s side.
Keep the good recipies and funny stories coming. Very entertaining indeed!
Judy
Thanks Judy!–I’m enjoying the pressure–no really!
Beau just climbed high high in the Judas and a branch fell at my feet as I was heading to the tomato patch. I started shouting for him to go back when Meredith came out and said calmly “ignore him”! Sure enough watering over, there he was on a low branch readying to skip onto the table!
This looks so good. I’m really enjoying your blog and fantastic recipes.
Thanks, Dedene.
Good job on your 300th post!
Thanks, Susan.
Thanks so much for including C/F temps, and both English and Metric units. It makes cooking go so much easier w/o needing a conversion chart out all the time. Are other nuts as good as walnuts, like pecans? Sounds delicious, and I will be trying it soon.
Worth a try, though their crunchiness never seems as good as walnuts.
I am about to try this recipe, Robin.
Thought you might like to know that on Radio 4 tomorrow (Monday) at 1.45pm UK time, there is to be a short programme about one of your food heroes, Elizabeth David. I think I remember you mentioning that you listen to R4 so perhaps you can catch this.
Thanks, Sophie-Jane–I’ll be glued!
Apologies, Robin, my informant gave me the time for the broadcast as French time, and I thought it was BST!! Hope you can catch the programme on iplayer.
It was in fact at 12.45pm BST.
I’m not sure your informant is appropriately named!
Maybe it’s tomorrow.
Anyway I’ll keep my eyes peeled and my ears glued!
You are right – it is tomorrow! I shall be having ‘words’ with a certain person. My humble apologies.
Note to self: always check things first….
!
It looked so good! And it was… we loved it, and plan on making it often. Thank you Robin
glad you enjoyed it–it comes in handy.
Robin, are you adding the nutrition info on the recipes? A friend sent me your book, and am manually calculating them. It would be helpful.
It’s reasonable question Rochelle. There are a variety of approaches to eating healthily. The book is an account of how I eat and Meredith incidentally, who does not have diabetes. I don’t usually consult nutritional values before I eat something. Though I do tend to eat low fat in products like yogurt and I take note of the GI and GL values of foods and generally try to eat organic where possible. For the most part it follows the mediterranean way of eating–widely acknowledged and accepted now as being a remarkably healthy, balanced, life enhancing and enjoyable approach to eating every day.