Thursday, May 18, 2023

Three Beautiful Things 05-17-2023: The Eggplant Groove, Resurrecting the Eggplant Sandwich, Dealing with My Memory Lapses

1. The other day, Debbie bought a couple of eggplants at Walmart. Today, I decided I wanted to relive a delicious part of the time we lived in Greenbelt, MD. 

I don't remember clearly what kicked off my preoccupation in Maryland with eggplant, but along with including eggplant in Thai curries, I also experimented numerous times with eggplant sandwiches. 

Since moving to Kellogg, though, I haven't cooked much with eggplant, but, today I loved getting back into the eggplant sandwich groove I was in back in 2014-17.

2. I bought ciabatta rolls at Yoke's and started off by cutting two of them in half and drizzling olive oil over each piece. I then put the rolls on the gas stove skillet to toast.

I cut slices of eggplant, salted them, and put them in a bowl with olive oil.

I also cut rings of sweet red pepper and thin slices of red onion and diced a chunk of mozzarella cheese. 

I cooked the eggplant until it was soft, but not mushy, and also cooked the red pepper and onion slices until they were tender and their sweetness began to emerge.

While these cooked, I got out a bowl and combined mayonnaise, sour cream, garlic powder, dry basil, and cilantro lime sauce. 

When the ciabatta halves were all toasted, I spread this sauce on each half and then piled on the eggplant, onion, red pepper, and cheese.

I finished making the sandwich by grilling each side of each sandwich for a minute or two so that the cheese melted.

I wish I'd had fresh basil on hand to put in these sandwiches. Feta cheese slices (in place of the mozzarella, unmelted) would have also been delicious.

No problem, though. Debbie and I loved our sandwiches; we were very happy to have this favorite meal back again. 

3. Earlier today, I signed up to have our monthly electric/gas bill paid for through automatic withdrawal from our checking account. Up until now, I inexplicably enjoyed paying that bill by check, along with our garbage/sewer and our water bill. I thought I had paid our April bill, but when the most recent bill arrived,  I learned was wrong and this mildly rattled me. I realized that I'm just not quite as on top of things as well as I've been used to and so as a guard against my own occasional memory lapses, I decided to take the paying of that bill out of my hands.

I don't know if it's true that working word puzzles can be a guard against mental decline, but I'm acting as if it is. I do Wordle, Quordle, and Waffle every morning and, at different points in the day, I work New York Times crossword puzzles. I almost always work the daily puzzle and I often go into the Times' online crossword puzzle archive and find plenty of puzzles there to work. 

This blog gives me a record of things I've done day to day -- so, for example, when Christy asks me about my experience when I had cataract surgery and I can't remember details about the patch over my eye or how long I put drops in my eyes and other things, it's very helpful to have this blog to refresh my memory. 


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