Eat Arkansas

Here's a quick cobbler recipe:
Oven at 375

3/4 cup self-rising flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk
1/2 stick butter (not margarine!)

Melt butter in oven-proof dish;
Mix together other ingredients.

Pour mixture into melted butter. Top with 1 and 1/2 cups of your fresh fruit (or you can use a can of pie filling).

Bake until golden brown--anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes.

Eggplant is wonderful grilled. Slice the asian ones in half, or the regular ones into wedges. Salt heavily, and let rest in a colander for an hour. Rinse the salt off and pat dry. The salt takes the bitterness out. Brush with olive oil, salt and black pepper and grill on a medium grill. Don't overcook or you will have mush.

I often make a smoked eggplant salsa. It's great as a dip or pizza sauce. You can grill them as stated above, or even place whole eggplants on a slow grill till they get wrinkley. When cool, peel and remove as many seeds as possible. Chop the processed eggplant. Saute onion, bell pepper, garlic then add fresh or canned choped tomatoes, fresh chopped basil, cayene pepper and the cooked eggplant. Chill for dip or freeze until you need it. Enjoy!

I'm a fan of breaded, fried eggplant slices. Slice 'em 1/4 inch thick, dip in egg, coat in seasoned bread crumbs, then slip them into maybe half an inch of hot olive oil until they're nice and brown and crispy (turn them over halfway through, of course). I usually end up eating them while I'm cooking the rest of the meal. :)

Those Japanese eggplants are wonderful. I've taken some of those, diced them, and added chopped water chestnuts, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and sizzled them up with a bit of oil, then drizzled hoisin sauce on them. Serve 'em like PF Chang's lettuce wraps.

Yummy.

Proportions are up to you

Heat good, fruity, olive oil, chopped garlic, chopped purple onion in glass baking dish at 400- watch it closely lest it burn.. add chopped eggplant, turn heat back to 350. When eggplant tender you can add chopped fresh tomato and cook a bit longer. When you think its done , cover w/ frsh grated parmesan

I still go for the "white trash cobbler" almost every time I have to make it. Which means taking an 8" square dish, buttered, greased, or sprayed with Pam, dumping a big ol' mess of fruit or even canned pie filling in the bottom, then cutting together a half a stick of butter with a half a box of yellow cake mix for a crumb topping. Bake at 350 'til golden-brown on top and bubbly. Beyond delicious, if a bit lowbrow.

And I've encroached a bit on your territory over here tonight, but it IS my neck of the woods, after all:
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/ninjapoodles/2007/07/fit_to_bust_i_am_over_this_new.aspx

Hmm, Belinda. I thought "redneck" cobbler was the one all the ladies discovered back when canned biscuits became popular in the 50's:

Prepare your baking dish as usual, cover bottom with canned biscuits, brushed or dipped in butter (or margarine), cover with fruit mixture (I've seen it done with fruit cocktail!), and bake at 350 until done.

"Done" means that the biscuits have oozed to the top and begun to brown.

Serve hot. Ice cream (or just heavy cream) optional.

As for the eggplant, Miss Helen at the D-Luxe in F'ville could whip up a good batch of eggplant lasagne (the eggplant replaces the meat) when she was in the mood.

Eggplant is a staple of much Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern cookery. There are many good online recipes for Baba Ganoush.

Then there's always Ratatouille (recipes also available), if you can eat it now without thinking of rats.

Bobby Flay was grilling eggplant the other morning, he sliced them lengthwise in about four layers, from the bottom to the top, leaving them intact for about an inch at the top, then fanned them and marinated before grilling.
I searched Food Network recipes for grill eggplant, and came up with over 150 variants
the union of sauted eggplant and basil is a wonderful thing

Belinda, my family used to call that dump cake. And we didn't even bother cutting in the cake mix and butter. Just covered the fruit with the cake mis and put dabs of butter all over the top. So simple and SOOOOO good!