Summer's last hurrah

A mix of tomatoes (some Amish Paste, some Tommy Toe, some Random Compost tomatoes), and our beloved Rotonda Bianca Sfumata di Rosa eggplants.

As you may well have noticed, Summer's gone. Sure, our garden's still cranking out handfuls of cherry tomatoes, and we still have chillies and eggplants hanging around, but they're growing and ripening more slowly now, as our night-time temperatures drop. These summer fruits - the nightshades - are much beloved in our family. Pearl even has quite a large tattoo of an eggplant to show her devotion! 

Despite our love though, eggplants have never grown in super-abundance for us. We're not really sure what we do wrong, but we suspect it has something to do with inconsistent watering. Oops. When we do grow and harvest them, they are treasured. So beautiful! So delicious!

With the coming of the cooler months, and the obvious slowing-down of our summer solanum harvest signalling the end of the Summer, we decided to have a feast to celebrate Summer's last hurrah. Our recipe of choice was Jamie's Eggplant Parmigiana. Can't go wrong with some fried eggplant, a tomato sauce and a bunch of cheese and bread baked to golden perfection, I say. And given our oven-less state, the whole shebang was whipped up on/in the barbecue!

Mmmmm.... nightshades.....

Like Pearl said, this recipe is perfect for the turn of season: eggplants and tomatoes are at their prime, but you need the cool crispiness of autumn to really enjoy this meal: it's not so much for the mid-summer dining. But with our window-blankets rolled down and the Autumn winds howling around our little bothy, it was the perfect way to enjoy the end of our summer's bounty.