Garden to Table: Roasted Fairy Tale Eggplants

As I showed before in an earlier blog, the Fairy Tale eggplants, fresh from the garden. The bowl they're in holds approximately a quart, and they're only a few inches long.

I trimmed off the green tops, and then sliced each eggplant in half, down the middle. Afterwards, I tossed them in a big bowl, with some olive oil and a little bit of black pepper and sea salt. I arranged them on  a couple of small baking sheets (I only have a countertop oven right now) cut side down and baked for 30 minutes at 375. At that point they were done enough to serve but I wanted them really roasty and dark, so I flipped them and cooked a further 15 minutes.

When they came out of the oven, the insides were very soft. Next time, I will let them cool, scoop out the insides, mix with a little lemon juice and some spices, and make something kind of like Baba Ganouch. As they are, the skin is tender enough to eat too, so I just popped them in my mouth in one piece. You could also take a spoon and just scoop the inside out of the skin and eat them that way too.  Or just eat like you would an artichoke, leaving the skin behind.