Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake

So ever since I was a kid, I've known what creme fraiche really tastes like and I know that I never see it for under 10000 dollars at the grocery.

Maybe I am exaggerating.

So I just made this Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake with Stonyfield Oikos Greek Yoghurt. Not bad. I put orange zest in the lemon icing. There is not really a nice way to put that glaze on. Pour it on and smooth it with a knife. It's not going to look fancy. It has a moist golden center, gooey baklava like crust, and isn't too too sweet. Easy to eat for breakfast.

Chinese Mongolian Eggplant

This was an impromptu Chinese dinner just for myself: drunk garlic chicken boiled in ginger, chicken stock, salt and sauced with a tamari and garlic sauce; Chinese eggplant, bok choy and brown rice. Grandma King used to boil chicken when I was a kid and put garlic and scallions straight on it. So comforting. The recipe on-line called for you to bring the parts to a boil and then turn the water off, cover, and leave the chicken for an hour. Half way through the hour, I got nervous and re-boiled it for about ten minutes, but that's just me. Mom's reaction to this boiled chicken nostalgia was: That dish is so much work. Work! You boil the chicken. The end! So when I went to China in 2002, I took a plane to Inner Mongolia and somehow by pointing to lines in a Lonely Planet, was taken to a touristic yurt camp way out in the middle of nowhere. Keep in mind that this was about a 45 minute drive away from a tiny village, Hohuhoatua (trainwreck spelling) of a million people. So many bikes! We were taken into tents for lunch and there were many dishes lined up, including a very gristly and grey selection of lamb's meat. The three young men working the lunch hour laughed at my reaction to all the food. This is the dish I loved and wanted to repeat as it really answers the question: what do I do with all these tomatoes from my garden? I think it was the first time I fully enjoyed eggplant. They really did use basil, that's not my idea. One regular or Chinese eggplant 2-3 tomatoes or one beefsteak tomato, diced 2 eggs well beaten, fried in sesame oil, made into an omelet, sliced into strips or pieces 1 T tamari 2t cornstarch 1/2 cup water fresh basil leaves 2-3 cloves garlic crushed and minced sesame oil peanut or olive oil hot sauce Eggplants can be bitter if you don't take the time to do this step: Peel it, slice it into panels as if it went through a giant hard-boiled egg slicer. Get a plate and starting with the biggest panels of eggplant, reconstruct the two halves of the eggplant, salting like crazy between with regular table salt. Put the smaller pieces on top. Cover with a plate and weigh it down with a can of something or a pan. I guess leaving the peel on is more authentic, but it get shiny and slimy and I just don't want it in the food. You decide. Make a slurry of the water and cornstarch. Mix until very well blended, no lumps. Add the tamari and a little sesame oil. Set aside. Someone once said to me he hated Chinese cooking because it's like hours of chopping and five minutes of frying. This dish proves this statement a little bit. Roll up the handful of fresh basil and cut it into ribbons. Set aside. Press the brown bitter liquid out of the eggplant and let it slide off the plate or pan. Rinse if you like, but definitely pat the pieces dry with a clean towel. Dice the eggplant. Set aside. Get a pan really hot before you add anything to it. Really hot. Coat the bottom of the pan in a thin layer of oil and quickly add the eggplant. Let it cook, stirring often, for 5-8 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and a few dashes of tamari. When you get towards the end of the eggplant cooking, add half of the garlic and let it get fragrant for about 45 seconds. Then add the tomatoes, the egg, and the cornstarch slurry all at once. Let this cook together gently for 5 minutes or so until it bubbles and the sauce gets thick and a little glossy, but is still pretty runny. At the end of this, add half the basil ribbons and the rest of the garlic. Let cook until the second influx of garlic is fragrant, a minute or so. Put it on a little bed of basmati brown rice and put a pinch of basil ribbons on top. Add hot sauce if you like, I'd say garlic chili paste might be a great thing here.