Curried Maple Baba Ganoush

For some reason, I thought Baba Ganoush was as mysterious and exotic Kim Zolciak's marriage to Atlanta Falcon Kroy Biermann. Let's just take a minute to appreciate the loving and supportive union of those two -- God bless. Really, though, it's pretty easy and simple, something Kim Zolciak definitely is not. The combination of spicy, warm curry and sweet maple make this a fun fall dip. The secret is roasting the vegetables over the flames of your stove. That's enough of an excuse to make this recipe, and if you don't have a gas stove, you can always roast your vegetables in the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes, but that's seriously a lot less fun.

Cost: under 10 dollars
Time to allot: 1 hour
Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant
1 medium red bell pepper
1/4 c diced onion
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 tbs curry powder
1/2 small jalapeno (more or less depending on taste)
2 tbs tahini
1 tbs pure maple syrup (not pancake syrup)
1/4 c plain greek yogurt
salt/pepper to taste
smidge of spicy paprika

1) First you want to start roasting your eggplant and bell pepper. The fire-roasting process is where the dip gets its smoky flavor so don't skimp on this part. Turn your burners to a medium high flame. Place the eggplant and eggplant on its own flame. You'll notice the vegetables start to sweat then finally blister. You want this charred, blistering all over the vegetable.

What you're doing is roasting the vegetables from the outside in. You want to make sure the outside is charred, but more importantly you want to get as much of the flesh on the inside soft and cooked as possible. This isn't as much an issue with the bell pepper as the eggplant as the eggplant is typically larger. As the skin chars, rotate the eggplant to cook all sides, don't forget the bottom too. You'll notice a popping and hissing as it cooks. Don't worry, your kitchen won't explode.

2) This process should take about 8 minutes for the bell pepper and around 20 for the eggplant. When it's done, put both smoldering vegetables in a paper bag and fold it shut. Locking the vegetables in with their smoking skins imparts the smokiness into the flesh. Say smokey one more time.

3) While the vegetables are sitting, saute the onion and garlic in a few teaspoons of olive oil over a medium heat, adding salt and pepper. When the onions are soft, add in the curry powder and stir for another minute or two then take it off the flame.

4) Now, take the eggplant and bell pepper out of the bag and rinse them off to remove the charred skin. Get as much of it off as possible because it can be bitter. Here's a picture of the rinsed, naked eggplant.

5) Remove the stem and cut the eggplant into 2 inch chunks. Same for the bell pepper, but only use half. Save the other half for sandwiches or something.

6) Pile everything into the blender - eggplant, bell pepper, curry onion mixture, jalapeno, tahini, maple syrup, pepper and a good helping of salt. Pulse away! Check periodically and season with salt and pepper to taste. You're going to want to pulse it to a very smooth consistency.

7) Finally, mix in the yogurt. This helps give it a creamy, spreadable texture.

I like to top mine with the spicy paprika or even cayenne for an extra kick. I was trying to work in a final Real Housewives of Atlanta reference here but it all seemed pretty forced. Don't be Tardy!