Originally Posted By Jess – August 23, 2015
Hi everyone, Jess here. If you tuned in yesterday, you’ll know that Sarah and I are in Vacationland (AKA Maine) at the moment. (Please bear with our margins and typos as our internet connection is a bit spotty up here.) Friday was our CSA pickup day or “Show” and after some planning and prepping, we got our share boxes packed up and headed north!
I thought about bringing the colorful boquets of the Springdell flower CSA with us on our trip, but our car was packed to the gills! Instead, what a lovely way to send our house sitters a little extra “thank you!”
We enjoyed a sunny morning and hunkered down some in our little cottages during the rainy afternoon. What a great time to prep some dinner!
Along with our share box contents, I had a bag of that Summer Marinara frozen from the other night. I browned some Springdell ground beef with heirloom onions (from a couple of pickups ago) before stirring in the marinara sauce.
I thinly sliced my eggplant and heirloom squash lengthwise before popping it into a pan to salt and let rest (this helps remove some of the moisture from the veggies, so that you don’t end up with a watery mess. It also removes any potential bitterness from your eggplant). If you can let your liberally salted veggies rest for up to an hour, great! If not, a few minutes will work ok. The salt can be rubbed or washed off afterwards, pat your slices dry if you do the latter. (I know, this all seems like extra work for nothing, but it really does make a difference.) After the eggplant and squash were done with the salt/resting process, all goes into a baking dish along with some cherry tomatoes. At 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, each slice of eggplant and squash was more on the tender side, and the tomatoes were roasted to sweet perfection.
Next, the slices of squash and eggplant took a quick trip through a fry pan with some garlic butter. You know, just because.
I layered the eggplant, squash, sauce and cheese before finishing with a topping of the roasted cherry tomatoes and Parmesan. 
This topping was inspired by a New York Times recipe link shared by Fellow Speingdellian Christine N. – Melissa Clark’s Carmelized Tomato Tarte Tatin.
About 50 minutes at 375 and it was great!
For a side, we enjoyed a salad of roasted beets and goat cheese on a bed of massaged kale, drizzled with balsamic glaze. 
We were going to have a Springdell dessert but decided to save it until Tuesday’s dinner. After an afternoon of rain, the weather is clearing so we are heading out for some ice cream. Until tomorrow, my friends!
