Going French

After a quick workout last night, I convinced Joe that we had enough ingredients at home to bypass an expensive dinner splurge at Whole Foods. (Poor guy. I could see him salivating just thinking about fresh salmon).

Turns out, I think we did QUITE well for creating an ad hoc menu with random produce leftover from Sunday's farmer's market. For starters, I took our four-day old baguette and sliced in half lengthwise. I set the oven to Broil and then sliced up red peppers, tomatoes, white onions and eggplant. I layered each vegetable across the baguette halves and drizzled olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, basil and parmesan cheese. I put these bad boys on a cookie sheet and broiled for 8 minutes - just enough to soften the crunchy bread and blacken the tops of the veggies.

Meanwhile, Joe was manning the stovetop. He broke down whole yellow squash, zucchini and eggplant into a hearty soup seasoned with salt and fresh tarragon. Now here comes the French part. He served the soup in small bowls and placed one fried egg on top of each soup. The yolks were slightly undercooked, so they oozed when we cut into the egg. A really interesting combination of textures - pureed vegetable soup and chewy egg whites.

On a side note, I'd never paid close attention to how tarragon tastes independent of other flavors. To me, it was like eating licorice! I looked up how to make licorice in countries all over the world, but tarragon is no where to be found. I thought for sure they had to be cousins.

For a hastily compiled meal of straggling market produce, we were quite pleased with the results. Granted, we didn't start eating until 10pm, but isn't that what the French do anyway?