Eat your Eggplant

The title statement, “eat your eggplant”, was not one that I ever heard as a kid!! Growing up in the heart of West Texas, eggplant wasn’t all that popular!!

I first learned about it when, as a young couple, Michael and I were living in Australia and bought a cookbook with a recipe for Ratatouille and, of course, the main ingredient was Eggplant!!

I have always been intrigued with the color of an eggplant, never really knowing if it was black or purple, or maybe even dark blue.

So, when the January block for the 2021 Monthly Color Challenge showed up, I was excited to see that it was going to give me the opportunity to explore the Eggplant!!

I spent a bit of time looking closely at a live example….

….but still had a hard time deciding on the color.

Then I added it to a few fabrics and I started seeing a pattern…..

It is Purple but also has some traces of red in the rind.

Since I only needed two colors, I decided that these best exemplified the stately Eggplant….

I had to “fussy cut” the dark hand-dyed fabric to make the best use of the darker color but soon had my pieces cut…..

After a few, short minutes of sewing….

……trimming and even a bit of ripping, the block was ready to sew together….

I had never “spun” an intersection before but in Jen’s instructional video she shows how to do it so I jumped in and tried it. It made the cutest, tiniest pinwheel on the back….

….and the front was picture perfect and OH SO FLAT……

Now, if I am going to be perfectly honest, Eggplant has never been a favorite food!! I am not happy with the texture of it and the only flavor that I get is from the surrounding juices!! Having said that, I did cook it one night for a vegetarian friend, and loved using it in the place of meat. I sliced the eggplant in thick slabs and breaded it using a recipe from Giada DeLaurentis for “Pork Milanese”….just leaving out the Pork. We dipped the eggplant in flour and then beaten eggs and finally crusted it with a bread crumb mixture containing grated Parmesan cheese, dried basil, and dried thyme. We then fried it in a bit of Olive Oil and Butter…..it was YUMMY!!!

If you haven’t already joined the 2021 Monthly Color Challenge, why don’t you jump over the “Patterns By Jen” and check out this and future clues!!!

So for now, it is Goodbye Eggplant……hello Lemon!!!