Friday menu: orange soup, eggplant with pesto

                                 Orange & green vegetable soup
        Start with cubed beets (I had carrot-colored), and while they are boiling, grate and sauté carrots, put them aside and sauté chopped onions. Add both ingredients to the pot. Cut orange squash (butternut squash or like) and add as well. Chop celery and add it too. Drop few whole tomatoes into the boiling soup and removed them in few minutes. Remove the skin (it's easy now), smash and return to the pot. Add chopped garlic at the end.
Serve garnished with crambled feta cheese. 

Aubergine with pesto

       Slice eggplant to make oblong strips (as opposed to rounds), dip in water, bread in flour and briefly fry on oiled skillet, salt as needed. Arrange layers on a baking tray, pour diced tomatoes (I used canned) mixed with chopped garlic. Bake till the dish looks almost done. Mix some homemade pesto with few spoonfulls of tomato juice from the tray and spread it on top. Bake for few more minutes and then leave in the oven while it's cooling down.

    It all smells good. But something is missing. Fish or beef tonight? This will define the choice of wine... 

Update: pasta tonight. Baked aubergine (eggplant) with tomato and pesto goes with pasta. Which dictates the choice of wine as Chardonnay.