It was my first week cooking in our new apartment! Though half of the kitchen was in boxes, things slowly found there homes. As of this hour the only box in the kitchen in a box full of empty boxes, and its beginning to feel more like I actually live here. Now, to find a new shelf for that ever expanding cookbook collection….

Curried roasted eggplant with coconut milk and black rice. It was only fitting to cook eggplant in my first apartment meal. I have had this pinned for far too long, and it took a night at home when we were tired of takeout and in great need of vegetables to get me to cook it. There are a lot of spices, but it smells heavenly. I didn’t have full cardamom pods so I used some ground. The eggplant soaks up all of the fragrant, coconut milk sauce. I certainly won’t wait years before making this again. I used black rice because I didn’t want to go to the store, but it turned out very dramatic and Halloween appropriate!

Burmese-Inspired chicken braised in coconut milk & turmeric with sweet potato. Apparently turmeric was the spice of the week here (but now I’m all out, so a trip to the spice market is in order). This soup was a huge hit. The coconut broth is loaded with herbs and spices, and the squash (I used butternut instead of sweet potato) soaks up all the flavors. My one change would be to double (or maybe triple) the squash/sweet potato to make for a more even chicken to veg ratio.

Eggplant parm. This was the last eggplant of the season here, and only eggplant parm would do it justice. I ran out of breadcrumbs before breading all the eggplant, but I just fried up the naked pieces and layered them between breaded slices and everything was just fine (and slightly easier!).

Roasted butternut with za’atar, yogurt, and fried bread. I adapted Molly’s recipe a bit because I already had butternut and za’atar. The fried bread coated in olive oil with yogurt was my favorite part, but I would be open to this whole combination for future savory yogurt breakfasts.

Scrambled eggs with goat cheese, sauteed collards, and toast. At the end of the season most of our garden collards were decimated by some caterpillars (I think), but after the cold weather kicked in some of the plants bounced back. I was able to harvest a last big bunch before we moved, and of course it found its way into breakfast.