Sunshine Citrus Chicken and Eggplant Fritters???

Eggplant Fritters with Sunshine Citrus Chicken!

Yesterday was the last day of school for this year. The girls were both super excited and so was I. I actually love the slower pace that we are able to enjoy in the ungodly hot months of June, July and August. We seem to be in our summer weather pattern already too (torrential rain and horrific thunderstorms every afternoon) which really inhibits what we can do later in the day. Of course we will still have the ice skating lesson 3 or 4 times a week and karate but at least it won't be so hectic. I also really am able to appreciate that I stay home with the girls. I love that we are able to spend a whole summer together getting to know one another!

Fresh Ginger - the skin hadn't even dried out yet!

Anyway for dinner last night I bought some boneless, skinless, chicken thighs (organic, free range, no antibiotics or hormones of course) and I marinated them in my Sunshine Citrus Marinade (I had some really old oranges and some really fresh ginger that I needed to use up).


Sunshine Citrus Chicken

Juice from half and orange
1 cup soy sauce (low-sodium if you like!)
1 tsp orange zest
fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 Tbsp Canola Oil
4 chicken thighs

Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes (longer is better). Grill or bake until done!

Now the real surprise came when I decided to make a new side dish using an eggplant that I had bought last week! I got the recipe (sort of a recipe) from Jenn's blog The Leftover Queen. During the week of her wedding her Mother in Law came to stay with them from Italy. Jenn's post had these really great looking meatless meatballs made with eggplant! I just had to try them. Well I must have done something wrong because they looked nothing like her MIL's did!!! I think I should have drained my eggplant after I had roasted it and scraped out all of the seeds. I had to drop them by the spoonful to fry them. They were like a fritter by the time I was done with them. But we were all really pleasantly surprised by them!

This was the consistency that I got. I was afraid to add more bread crumbs (smother the taste of the eggplant) so this was as good as it was going to get!

Here's what I did:

I poked several holes in 1 large eggplant and roasted it at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. Once it had cooled a bit I cut it open and removed the seeds and placed the remaining pulp in my food processor with a handful of dried parsley (I didn't have fresh), about a cup of seasoned bread crumbs and processed it all together. I kept adding bread crumbs until it was a consistency that I could drop from a spoon. Jenn's MIL were very dry looking (in a nice way) and mine sure weren't'!!! Fried up though in some hot oil they were wonderful!

Would I make these again? Oh yes definitely!!! They were delicious fried up like that!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com