Are you ready for Earl to pound down your doors, all you East Coasters out there? It seems he should be arriving just in time for dinner, so make sure to make something to soothe him and calm him down tonight...maybe make him this week's GCF?
For this week, I thought I'd do a slow roasted GCF, since its a three day weekend with a storm predicted, why not cuddle up inside with a nice glass of red wine some good girlfriends or that special someone or some family members and roast some nice veggies low and slow, perfuming your home. We are going to make a duo of roasted veggies with two cheeses and served with a homemade roasted red pepper aioli on grilled sourdough bread. Before you can get to the grilled bread, you have to do the veggies themselves. Grab a small baking dish and preheat your oven to 250, like I said folks, slooooooow cooking!
At every farmer's market now, you see some spectacular eggplants and this past weekend I saw some really lovely small eggplants at the Greenmarket in Union Square, grab a few of these. Slice them horizontally and cover the bottom of your baking dish with them. Top these eggplants with a nice drizzle of olive oil, some salt, pepper, and fresh oregano, then place a nice layer of Ardith Mae's fresh chevre over them. Top the chevre with thin slices of heirloom tomatoes which will then be topped with some freshly chopped garlic, fresh rosemary and one thyme sprig and some EVOO of course. Now take the back of your spoon and push the tomatoes down just a bit so that you get rid of any excess air or space between the veggies. Top your veggie stack with a few leaves of basil which will crisp up and get crunchy as you roast them. Place this in the oven at 250 for about 45 minutes or till the tomatoes curl up on loose their liquidy interiors. While you are roasting the eggplants and tomatoes, grab one orange, one red, and one yellow pepper and dice them up. Throw them in another oven roasting dish with olive oil, a few diced carrots, salt, pepper, and some marjoram. These only need about a half hour. You will smell them being done. Pull them out and put them in a food processor and blend, put some red pepper flakes in the food processor as well. What you will get is a fantastic roasted red pepper carrots spicy sauce to dip your roasted veggie sandwich in, a vegetarian French Dip sauce.
Lets get back to this veggies now, once you've made your pepper sauce, you can grill two nice pieces of sourdough bread, the perfect backdrop for your veggies. Pull them out of the oven and cut out a nice piece to put between your two slices of bread. On the bottom piece of bread (the eggplant side), I like to put some pecorino pepato to add to the sandwich's cheesy quotient and to provide a difference in cheese textural qualities. The pecorino pepato will add the piquant punch of the black peppercorns that this straightforward creamy sheep's milk cheese is intensely infused with. It will also add a gooey, decadent bent to this sandwich. Once your sandwich is toasted, stick a tooth pick through it so it's easier to dip into your roasted red pepper carrot spicy sauce. Enjoy this with a nice light red wine and welcome the thought of cooler nights.
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