Roasted Eggplant and Red Pepper Dip

Not that I think you are dense or anything, but I am just going to say it right off the bat: you need to turn on your oven to make this.  If that turns you away, so be it, but all I can do is offer my promise that turning on your oven to make this is so worth it.  

Any other time of the year, I wouldn't need to give this disclaimer, but I feel like everyone is sweltering lately.  Even living here in San Diego where we supposedly have a 'mild' climate, it is HOT.  (I finally broke down and bought my first fan!  Please don't make fun of me that I didn't have a fan before.)  You probably think I am crazy, telling you to make a Roasted Eggplant and Red Pepper Dip when your house is already a heat box, but I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite things to make in the summer.  

This dip tops my list of summer favorites because it is easy, healthy, and very quick and inexpensive to make.  So naturally, when my sister came to visit last weekend, we whipped up a batch to take to the beach.  She specifically asked me to show her recipes we could make together that she would be able to recreate back at home in Colorado.  My sister cooks, but isn't as passionate about it as I am and doesn't have a lot of time on her hands (and really just prefers ice cream and brownies), so easy recipes like this one are perfect for her.    

My sister also asked me the right way to cut an onion and other veggies, and I felt like a proud teacher with a star pupil as she sliced and diced like a pro.  

So here is just how easy this recipe is: You slice up the veggies...

It's a Pickle Party!

PICKLES!  Pickles, pickles, pickles!!!  Oh how I love them.  Just thinking about pickles makes me want to do a happy dance, so just use your imagination to conjure up your best of image of what I do when I actually eat one.  And just look at the word "pickle," doesn't it make you want to giggle?  

Pickles have been a favorite food of mine since childhood when I used to eat them by the jar.  Literally.  (As I mentioned before, I am not sure how my mom let me get away with this, or how my stomach could handle digesting an entire jar of pickles.  Children are tough.)  I would eat all varieties of pickles: Kosher, zesty dill, bread and butter, spears, hamburger slices, and especially those giant deli pickles that they pull out of the huge glass jar at the local sandwich shop.  No dill spear was safe from the voracious appetite of The Little Cilantropist.  Pickles are an old-fashioned food that I associate with home, and comfort, and a casual, fun sort of eating, and it looks like I am not alone. 

Now that I am all grown up (or at least I am often seen masquerading as an adult), I still eat pickles with gusto, although not by the jarful any longer.  Instead, I get my fix through pedestrian supermarket-variety pickles and dill spears that accompany the occasional sandwich or cheeseburger when I eat out.  Since I think I am a pickle addict at heart, I began to wonder if this was really enough pickle-eating to get by.  You see, I have recently felt like something was missing in my life, and I think that thing is The Pickle.  

Notice that I used a few capital letters there when I referred to The Pickle.  I did that on purpose, to specifically delineate the olive-green, less-than-crunchy, Vlasic-type pickle, from The Bright-Green, Full-of-Flavor, Homemade-Type Pickle.  In fact, these homemade pickles really shouldn't even share the same name as those knock-offs crowding the shelves of giant supermarket chains; but alas, a pickle by any other name might not really be a pickle at all (plus, I don't actually have any power or influence to change the names of foods), so for now these are Pickles with a capital P.