Recipe Day: Eggplant Roulade

I was away in Scotland for  a week and was wonderfully proven wrong by my White Knight. He did not go out to eat every night with the kids nor did he resort to sandwiches or eggs all week. In fact, he came up with a truly delicious way to make the eggplant that came in our CSA/Farm basket that week that even the kids inhaled! (I'd say his cooking was one of the top reasons I married him, but we both lived in a military barracks and so there was no way to test his cooking skills until later - at any rate, he is a fantastic, if messy, chef and I benefit greatly from that!)

The thin eggplant slices are not overpowering in flavor and even come out tasting a bit like lasagna noodles. Put a thin stripe of marinara sauce on top and they might not even know the difference! So, now that I have this fairly simple, mildly time-consuming recipe down, I'm sharing it here for Try a New Recipe Tuesday over at Home to 4 Kiddos, or Encourage One Another Wednesday at Deep Roots at Home - make sure you head over to see what other folks are talking about today!

Weekly Menu - January 8

I've often been interested in what others are buying and making for meals when it's closer to the end of a pay period and things are a little tighter. As part of our efforts to become debt free in 2013, I am looking closely at our grocery list and our grocery bills, but in lowering how much we spend, my goal is two-fold: to make meals my family enjoys (most of them anyway) and not to cut back so much that people are going hungry (with teen boys in the house that can be difficult!)

Lunch: peanut butter sandwich with apple slices,
golden raisins and currants

Keeping a Stocked Larder

Christmas is here and so too are the weather reports of our first major winter storm on the way! They're currently predicting 6 to 10 inches, but last time we had one along these lines, we ended up with four feet! More predictable than the weather in this type of situation, are the long lines and the empty shelves at the grocery store. I often hear comments about people wanting milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. Along those lines, I have seen several posts on a networking site called "CafeMom" asking what sorts of things do you like to keep handy in the event of a storm. Having answered this post a number of times now, and in much the same way, I thought I'd post my basic answers here as well; for some of the more obscure items, I'll post what I might use it to make...

Thanksgiving on a Grand Scale

WHAT A CROWD!

We're flying out to Washington state for Thanksgiving this year. We'll be there for just over two weeks and haven't been since 2007! How long has it been since you last saw your mother?! Well, I have a big family: my grandfather was one of six children (all boys!), so there are lots of cousins and aunts (the uncles are all gone now, sadly.) My mother is one of ten children, I am one of six, my brother and sister-in-law have seven, we have four, another brother has three... As you can imagine, Thanksgiving will be a FULL HOUSE! We're expecting to cook for 25 people, minimum.

The logistics involved in a "regular" Thanksgiving are enough. In our house "normally" we schedule the menu about 3 weeks in advance so we have time to figure out who will bring what, how much to make, etc. We also schedule a timeline out so that the food all comes out hot at the same time (relatively speaking) and we're aware of what needs to be made in advance (pretzel salad, for instance.)

I have been asked two questions: 1) what do we "normally" have for Thanksgiving? and 2) Can we provide the rolls (apparently Mom went home and talked about my bread.) SO, I'm guessing the list so far for 25 people looks about like...

100 yeast rolls

3 pans of pretzel salad (an absolutely yummy dessert dish - that it seems like only my in-laws make anywhere)

2 turkeys (my guess)

2 stuffed acorn squash

6 lbs. of stuffing

6 pies

6 - 8 lbs. of potatoes for mashing

1 lb. of brussle sprouts (I'm probably the only one who will eat it!)

8 - 10 cans of cranberry sauce

3 lbs. of homemade cranberry sauce

3 gallons of apple cider

5 gallons of milk

I know there is more - in our house here in Maryland, we usually also have roasted root vegetables (carrots, turnips, parsnips, garlic, apples, etc. drizzled with olive oil, topped with rosemary and baked for about 20 minutes at 450) and the family back home has their favorites - just like I know there will likely be more than 25 people attending. Always plan for one thing, and expect more to show for something like this!

In spite of the chaos that I know will ensue and the noise and confusion - there is also the excitement, the fellowship and the love of being with family and friends, both old and new. My one request was the pretzel salad and stuffed acorn squash (to make a main dish for us vegetarian-types.) What does your Thanksgiving look like? Do you have a favorite "must have" recipe?