Eggplant Sammies & Oven Baked Garlic Fries

I'm sure I've mentioned the neurotic steps I go through to get a grocery list together.  Yesterday and today I worked on the menu part.  I usually choose one place to get recipes from for a new menu, otherwise it's too overwhelming. 

I have my cookbooks, my recipe index box, my two "keeper" binders with recipes I've made before, my accordion file with loose recipes I've torn from somewhere, and a Food folder in my email account with things people have emailed to me. 

Phew.  That was stressful just thinking about it. 

Well now, I have a NEW place filled with recipes.  Pinterest.  Ah yes, Pinterest.  The food photos are so pretty.  I decided last week that I needed to start making more of the recipes that I'm pinning. 

I've made a few and I've been commenting on them under the actual pin.  If it was a fail, I delete it.  I don't want to make a bad comment and hurt someone's feelings, so I just make it disappear.  I'm pretty sure I would cry if someone told me that something I had posted sucked.  So don't tell me.  I don't want to know you hated it.  It will send me into a spiral of deep depression.  Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it would hurt my feelings and I'd obsess about it.

So tonight's meal came from my Pinterest boards.  To see the sammie link, click here.  For the fries, click here.  I won't tell you what other things I'll be making this week, just in case they don't live up to their photo.  They'll just disappear into never never land.

The sammie was delicious, but The Kid was not on board even a little bit.  He faked a tummy ache and asked to be excused from the table.  He'll be really hungry by breakfast.  The Girl ate hers, but I think it was the goat cheese that sold it for her. And the fact that I bought special popsicles for dessert.  She'll do anything for sugar.

The fries were super yummy, but there seemed to be a lot of steps involved.  Although, anytime I make something new, I'm kinda like a headless chicken, reading, rereading, making sure I'm following the recipe.  I'm much more calm if I'm just cooking from my head.  I would definitely use the same seasonings again - there were a ton - but I'd do them like I normally do oven fries, without all the extra oil involved.  The crunchy fried garlic on them was amazing, so that part is a keeper as well.

Here's the taters ready to go into the oven.

And here they are screamin' hot and ready to eat.

The sammies use pan fried eggplant as the "bread".

Here it is ready to assemble.

I layered lettuce, tomato, and basil on the bottom half.

Goat cheese from the farmer's market on the top.

Put the two together and it's ready to eat.

Here's dinner on my plate: