Grilled Summer Vegetables with Pesto (Page 591)

RECIPE #1159

• Date: Friday, April 30, 2010 --7pm
• Location: Palo Alto, CA
• Kitchen: Emilee and Brian's Apartment
• Dining Companions: Emilee, Brian, Sam, Matty, Josh G, Chris, and Scarecrow
• Recipe Rating: B-
  

This was the last recipe I had left in the Vegetables section of The Book. I hadn't made it yet because we don't have a grill (yet... it is definitely on my "Things to buy when we get back to our house in Michigan" list). Emilee and Brian have one though, so I picked this recipe as part of the birthday dinner I made for my special gentleman at Emilee and Brian's place. This was a pretty simple recipe. I marinated some eggplant, zucchini, red peppers, and squash in a mixture of oil, vinegar, and herbs. Then I grilled the vegetables and served them with pesto. This recipe was only OK. Some of the vegetables turned out nicely -- the red peppers, for instance, were tasty. The eggplant, on the other hand, was not so nice. It was quite charred on the outside, but still had a lot of moisture on the inside, so the texture came out pretty undesirable. There was nothing terribly objectionable about this recipe, but also nothing special about it. In a meal full of tasty things, this dish wasn't one that got finished. No one had much enthusiasm for it.

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Now I am done with the Vegetables section! I am sad to see this section go because A) I love vegetables, and B) It is getting harder and harder to construct a meal from The Book that has side dishes. The vast majority of the remaining recipes are entrees. Oh well! In no particular order, here are my top five recipes from the Vegetables sections:

• Fried Onion Rings -- These were everything that a restaurant onion ring dreams to be (flavorful, crispy, delicious...) but often fails to achieve. We ate these onion rings at the mayonnaise tasting years ago -- when we made all the mayo recipes from The Book. They were tasty on their own and tasty dipped in a dozen different kinds of mayo. Yum!
• Brown-Buttered Corn with Basil -- I love corn and I love brown butter, so I was bound to like this recipe. It wasn't just me though -- Emilee and Brian loved this one too (and they can be a tough audience!). This is a great example of just a few ingredients coming together to form something awesome!
• Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic -- A fabulous cauliflower preparation: simple and delicious. This is still my favorite cauliflower preparation that I have eaten!
• Steamed Broccoli with Caper Brown Butter -- People often ask if I repeat recipes from The Book that I really like. The answer is pretty much, "No, not yet," but this is the exception. I have made this dozens of times since I blogged about it in 2006, and now this is my special gentleman's signature broccoli preparation. This is our go-to side dish. It is incredibly delicious. If I were to make a list of the top ten recipes I have made from the entire book, I would strongly consider putting this one on there.
• Beets with Lime Butter -- When I first made this dish I was surprised by how much I liked it. Beets and lime didn't seem like an obviously tasty combination to me, but it really worked. It was also relatively quick for a beet preparation. Definitely a keeper.
  

With 132 recipes in it, the Vegetables section is the longest section in The Book. There are definitely many other vegetable recipes that I remember fondly besides just these five, but these were all real stand-outs!