After two weeks away from my beloved grill, tonight I hopped-to and fired it right on up again! On the menu tonight: Grilled eggplant subs with a vegetarian sausage-and-squash dish I hadn’t tried before, plus some couscous cooked inside on the stovetop.
About an hour before I fired up the grill, I sliced a large eggplant into rounds, placed the rounds in a zip-top bag, and then added a nice dose of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, minced onion, and garlic powder. Then I shook the bag around for a minute or two and then placed said bag back in the fridge to wait until dinnertime. (While it waited, I finished canning five pints of salsa – which is another story altogether!)
Just before I lit the charcoal, I sliced up a huge zucchini from Great Country Farms into rounds, placed them atop a sheet of aluminum foil, and then added a pat of butter and some salt and pepper. But I wasn’t done yet! Next, I heated up four links of vegetarian breakfast sausage in the microwave, sliced them up, and added them to the foil as well, topping everything with a liberal amount of panko bread crumbs for good measure. Then I wrapped the foil over to make a packet (and added a second sheet of foil for strength, if we’re being honest here), and then set it aside until after the fire died down on the grill.
I cooked the zucchini-sausage packet for about half an hour all told, turning it over every 10 minutes or so. I placed the eggplant slices on the grill with about 15 minutes to go until it was time to eat, and flipped them once halfway through the cooking time. I do love the sizzle that eggplant makes when it hits the grill grate! There’s something satisfying about that, you know? Like you’re actually cooking out just like our ancestors did. Oh, what a feeling!
The couscous cooks up in just 5 minutes or so, so when it was ready I tossed it into a bowl and brought it outside to join the party. Next it was just a matter of pulling everything off the grill, toasting two sub rolls, and then compiling our subs!
LeeLee may have done his a little differently (I confess I wasn’t watching), but I put a dollop of Just Mayo on my sub roll, then drizzled it with a little balsamic vinegar. Next I added three slices of eggplant, two slices of tomato, and several slices of goat cheese from a round I purchased today. Then I smooshed the sub closed (it was getting a little unwieldy by this point!) and dug in to eat!
Oh, the sub was the star of the show by far. I mean, don’t get me wrong – we loved my new sausage-squash concoction, and couscous is always a winner. But these subs were just so dang fresh. The mix of the marinated eggplant and the goat cheese, accented by fresh tomato (also from the CSA) and an extra dose of balsamic, really set these sandwiches apart. I don’t know why we don’t have them more often, but we’ll definitely rectify that over the coming months! And who knows, maybe I’ll pull another trick or two out of my sleeve to really send these babies over the top. Stay tuned!
:)