Passover Meringues

It's that time of year.  When all my Jewish friends show up with matzoh sandwiches and complain about not eating carbs.  I invited my friend and now neighbor Boston over for passover dinner tomorrow night - fortunately, she's chill enough to use my regular dishes and not make me sweep out my apartment with a feather - so I made some meringues which are kosher for passover (I think.)  I checked to make sure that cream of tarter was allowed, and read the ingredients list on my chocolate chips package to check for leavening.  I think they're sufficient, but I could be wrong.  They are sufficiently delicious, and I know my sister will eat them if my friend doesn't.
Ingredients:
2 egg whites
dash of salt
dash of cream of tarter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2-1 cup mini chocolate chips


Procedure: (preheat oven to 225)
1.) Place egg whites, salt, and cream of tarter in metal mixing bowl.
2.) Whip egg whites with electric mixer
3.) As egg whites stiffen up, slooooowly pour in sugar.  
4.) Once egg whites are stiff and glossy, add chocolate chips.
5.) Spoon out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6.) Bake for 1 hr on top rack and 1 hr on bottom rack. 

Banana Bread Muffins

We had a few overripe bananas lying around, so they went into banana bread.  I like to use this recipe from The Simple Dollar, but today we were out of butter, so I substituted 1/2 cup applesauce for the butter.  

Our loaf pan was currently in use, so I poured everything into muffin tins.  It made 12 very full muffin tins, and cooked for about 45 minutes.  

I put most of the muffins in ziploc bags in the freezer, so they can just be grabbed and microwaved, and we don't feel the need to eat them all this week before they go bad.  

Eggplant steaks

Tonight, I finally got back in the kitchen.  (It's been a busy week, and Mr. Barefoot has been doing all the cooking.)  I made eggplant steaks - and man, were they delicious.

You will need:

• 1 eggplant, sliced into 3/4 inch thick steaks.
• 4-5 cloves garlic (if you don't like that much garlic, well, why are you reading this blog?)
• 2 tbsp (ish) olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Italian seasoning 
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parmesan cheese (optional)

Equipment:

• Baking sheet
• Indoor grill (or maybe a frying pan)
• Oven at 350
• Basting brush
• Food processor

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  
2. Put eggplants on a baking sheet, bake for 10-20 minutes, flipping midway.  
3. Meanwhile, put 4-5 peeled garlic cloves in food processor; dice.  Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, spices, salt, and pepper.  Process until well combined.  
4. Take eggplant steaks out of the oven.  Brush both sides with oil/vinegar mixture.  Allow to sink in while grill heats.  
5. Place on grill, close grill.  Grill for 3-5 minutes.  
6. Stack eggplants in a tower, with cheese between each eggplant.  

Mr. Barefoot says this is the best eggplant I've ever made.  My only problem is that there is not enough protein in these as a main course, so I got hungry again a few hours later and needed a snack.  We served these with polenta cakes and zucchini sauted in the same sauce as the steaks.