Eggplants & BBQs?

It Sunday afternoon, the kids have been playing in the pool, my eldest is meeting up with friends, my middle has spent the day looking for something to do and is now out skateboarding, and my youngest has two mates around.  This leaves me with a few short minutes to begin blogging.  Lets talk about Eggplants.  To chat about eggplants I have to take you back to a school BBQ that I organised at the end of last year.  Being the nutritionist that I am, any kind of foodie challenge is met head on.  Can't resist, so when the teacher asked if I could cater for a school BBQ for 30 people for $200.00, I couldn't resist.  I had a rather ecliptic mix of food intolerances/lifestyle choices so to accommodate those here is the menu.

• Grass fed minute steaks
  
• Roast Vegetables
  
• Hummus and crudites
  
• Bread rolls/thick sliced bread/gluten free wraps
  
• Watermelon, rock melon, apple
  
• Sliced cheese/lettuce/tomato/cucumber
  

I will let you know that the BBQ was a huge success, but the most tastiest idea were the roast vegetables.  This is where the eggplant came into it.  

I basically sliced up red peppers, zucchini, eggplant and onion into equal sized chunks.  Put them into a large bowl and drizzled a generous amount of olive oil, cajun spice mix, paprika, a dash of chill powder and Himalayan salt. I BBQ them on a flat plate till they were soften and coloured.  They were delicious. Since then, I have been slicing eggplant thinly and saturating in olive oil and adding paprika, chili and garlic then roasting them on a flat plate to make a eggplant stack with a beef burger amongst it all.  Once again the flavours were delicious.  

So these summer holidays, my memories are of the wonderful eggplant meals we have had whether we were camping, on holidays, or at home.

Here are some health properties of eggplants courtesy of Dr Josh Axe.

1.  Fights free radicals and cancer
2.  Helps lower high cholesterol
3.  Improve digestive health
4.  High source of bone building manganese
5.  Good source of vitamin B
6.  Prevent skin cancer

Eggplants are a member of the nightshade family along with potatoes and peppers.  Some people may have to reduce or eliminate their exposure to nightshades if they are intolerant to them.