Raw Babaganoush

Or should I call it “raw babble-ganoush”? My fabulous dinner guest, Gena, and I seem to have no shortage of things to say to each other. No complaints there, of course.

Tonight’s menu was nothing especially complicated. It wouldn’t be dinner with Gena if there wasn’t kale involved, anyway.

I threw together a massaged kale salad that included red cabbage, turnips and grape tomatoes.

The fun part of the meal is actually what I made (and previewed) last night: raw babaganoush!

I can hear you groaning from here, for how could raw eggplant possibly be delicious? Well, if nothing else, you can dip delicious things into it: orange and yellow baby carrots, zucchini and my pulp crackers.

But I think that if you gave this recipe a whirl, you’d find that there’s nothing gross about it! So here is the recipe for my humble concoction, adapted from pretty much an entire set of Google search results:

Raw Babaganoush

Ingredients:

• 4 cups eggplant, chopped
• 6 kalamata olives
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp EVOO
• 1/2 cup raw tahini
• 1/4 cup “raw” almond butter
• salt and pepper to taste (I used 1/4 tsp of each and then added a bit more)
• OPTIONAL: 1 or more cloves garlic, fresh parsley

Directions:

1. Chop eggplant, place in an airtight container and freeze overnight (at least 12-24 hours). Thaw for at least 2 hours before proceeding with the rest of the recipe. This will help reduce bitterness.
2. With the food processor’s motor running, drop olives through the top so that they splatter finely onto the sides of the work bowl (if using garlic, you would also add that at this stage).
3. Add remaining ingredients and process until as smooth as possible. This may take a little while, 5 minutes or so. Stop occasionally to scrape down sides and taste. Add more salt and pepper if necessary (or Bragg’s, like Gena did!).

Serves…a lot.

My favorite dipper for the babaganoush was the zucchini, but crackers and pita will be stellar as well, naturally. Plus, you might have noticed me stealthily enjoying generous baba-blobs atop oat groat bread last night. Mushy and delicious, just the way I like it! My love affair with eggplant doth continue. Let’s be honest: it’s a whole lot easier to make babaganoush when you can skip the step of roasting the eggplant first!