Rusty's Rockin' Vegetable Tower with Feta

As it’s late September, it’s a little late in the season to find produce tables at farmers’ markets overflowing with locally grown eggplant  and tomatoes. Nevertheless, there could be some stragglers out there, as well as greenhouse or hothouse tomatoes. If you really want to try this recipe now — and I highly rec0mmend you do — there’s no shame or guilt in buying your produce out of season. It just won’t have the flavor punch that produce eaten in season does.

The following recipe comes from Rusty Winkstern or the Monument Café and Market in Georgetown, Texas.

Eggplant & Tomato Tower with Feta

For the marinade

•  3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup, plus 2 Tablespoons olive oil

For the Tower

• 1 medium eggplant ( about 1 pound)
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1/4  pound feta cheese, crumbled

Kitchen gear

• Stove top grill pan
• Cooking oil spray
• Flexible spatula
• Domed lid, or small saucepan to use as cover
• Serving platter
  

Directions

1. Preheat your pan on medium high heat.
2. Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, rosemary, salt and pepper.
3. Add the olive oil slowly, whisk together.
4. Peel eggplant and cut into 1/3 inch slices crosswise.
5. Cut the tomatoes crosswise into 1/3 inch thick slices.
6. Place vegetables on a tray or in a glass baking dish.
7. Brush generously with dressing, let vegetables marinate 5 – 10 minutes before grilling.
8. You should have 8 slices of eggplant and 8 slices of tomato.
9. Spray grill pan with cooking oil.
10. Grill the eggplant until cooked through about 2 – 3 minutes brush with dressing when you turn the eggplant, transfer to rack to keep warm.
11. Grill the tomato slices about 30 seconds each side, do not overcook!
12. To make four towers: Alternate a slice of eggplant with tomato. Place crumbled feta on each vegetable tower.
13. Return to grill, cover and cook an additional 2 – 3 minutes or until the feta melts.

Serves 4 as a side dish, serves 2 as an entree (with crusty bread and green salad).

NOTE: This would also make a great sandwich filling on slices of Italian bread rubbed with garlic and grilled.

Inside the Monument Market

Before I started growing some of my own food and shopping at farmers’ markets, I used to love how I could go into nearly any grocery store at any time of year and find whatever I wanted: tomatoes and strawberries in winter and snow peas and Brussels sprouts in the heat of summer, and tropical fruits when I lived nowhere near the tropics; all this regardless of the season. I thought the food tasted pretty good until I tried some of those same items harvested in season, at the peak of ripeness from my own food garden.

The difference was akin to the taste and texture of freshly baked bread versus month-old stale bread.

Do I still shop at conventional grocery stores? Yes, of course I do. They are convenient, they offer a wide selection, and depending on where I shop, I also find organic and sometimes even local produce, meat and dairy. Moreover, my schedule doesn’t often jive with the days and schedules of most farmers markets and farm stands.

Rusty Winkstern recognized the challenge of home cooks and professional chefs who needed the flexibility of shopping for fresh, locally grown food seven days a week instead of on certain days of the week, during a four hour window. It’s part of the reason why he opened the Monument Market next door to his Monument Café in Georgetown, Texas.

Inside the big bright space shoppers find fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy and artisanal food and drink from farmers, ranchers and food crafters from within a 250 mile radius of the town; food that may have been harvested only a few hours before arriving at the market.

Next to growing your own, buying produce from farmers’ markets and farm stands is your best bet for finding the freshest in seasonal produce, and Rusty offers a few tips to help you choose:

• When buying fresh produce (wherever you buy it) always look for the best quality, seasonal fruits and vegetables available.
• High quality fresh fruits and vegetables have a deep and lively color and succulent scent.
• Unless wrinkles are characteristic of ripeness in a particular variety, fresh ripe produce generally has smooth, firm skin.
• If buying dark green vegetables, avoid items that are turning yellow. Sure, you can remove the yellow portion, but that color indicates the overall age of the item, which means less flavor and nutrition.
• When buying leafy greens or items like beets, carrots and turnips that still have their foliage, look for a kind of perkiness (not too wilted).
• And remember, when you buy from farmers’ markets and farm stands your money stays in your community and you help to support local agriculture.

Rusty Winkstern inside Monument Cafe

Whether he’s serving up a hearty dose of holiday spirit with his annual free Christmas dinner or enticing his diners with a homemade piece of pie or chicken fried steak, Rusty Winkstern has become a Georgetown favorite, just like his restaurant The Monument Café.

For more than 15 years since opening his Texas roadside diner in Georgetown, Winkstern has been committed to serving the community not only with amazing food but with the time and support given back to community causes and his ongoing support of local farmers and producers, whose products and ingredients are featured at Monument Café.

In fact, his family farm, run by his wife Lael, also supplies fresh produce to the restaurant on a regular basis. Winkstern is expanding Georgetown’s access to fresh locally grown product with the opening of the Monument Market, a year round farmers’ market-style grocery that opened Spring 2011 next door to the Monument Café.

A New York-native, Winkstern grew up on a large vegetable farm in Pembroke, NY and then took a position with U.S. Gypsym Company which transferred him to Texas in the 1980s. He left the company to open his first restaurant in Austin called Aunt Chiladas in 1982. Over the next decade he went on to open Springhill Catfish Restaurant in Pflugerville and Capitol Café in Austin before opening Monument Café in 1995.

A former member of the Georgetown Convention and Visitors Bureau in which he served for two years, Winkstern is currently a member of the Downtown Georgetown Economic Restructuring Committee. He also served on the Unified Development Code Taskforce for the City of Georgetown. He also participates with the Health District on the Food Safety Advisory Committee and on the Healthy Hearts Coalition, a group working to promote healthier lifestyles for Georgetown community residents.

Winkstern also participates in a number of fund raisers for local causes and every year provides meals for “Meals on Wheels” and anyone else that may need a meal on the Christmas Day. Last year, the café provided more than 1600 meals to local residents during the holiday.

Winkstern is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Georgetown. He and his wife have three daughters.

Inside the doors at Monument Cafe

Georgetown, Texas, once Austin’s sleepy neighbor to the north, is wide awake and making a name for itself among folks who prefer locally sourced food–in no small part thanks to the Monument Café & Market.

Open for business since 1995, the restaurant–under the leadership of owner Rusty Winkstern–has evolved into a dining destination. Designed to be reminiscent of Texas roadside cafes of the 1920s to 1940s, Monument hits the mark and then ups the ante with their food, prepared using mostly local and organic produce, meat and dairy.

Jane and Michael Stern of Roadfood.com, give Monument Café high marks. Writes Michael on his website: “Service is fast and efficient and the food is a roster of Lone Star classics at their very best.“

Because of its growing popularity, the restaurant eventually moved up the road to a larger location, and in the spring of 2011, opened the market adjacent to the café, where visitors stop in and avail themselves of the wide variety of locally grown organic produce that area farmers bring to the market.  Rusty says they’ll eventually have a bakery inside the market and offer cooking classes, too.

I stopped into the Market and Café one early Sunday morning in late July to talk with Rusty and to have him demonstrate a simple and delicious dish of grilled eggplant, tomato and feta cheese. It was elegant in its simplicity and flavor, and reminded me of Italian comfort food–which is what I grew up eating.

Speaking of comfort food, what’s yours? Tell us in the comments below and you could win one of four $25 gift certificates to dine at the Monument Cafe.

ENTER TO WIN ONE OF FOUR $25 GIFT CERTIFICATES TO MONUMENT CAFE

RULES:

1. Must be 18 years old to enter.
2. Only entries received by 5 p.m. CST Sunday, September 25, 2011 are eligible to win.
3. Contest open to residents of Texas only.
4. Must leave a comment about your favorite comfort food–past or present–to be eligible to win.
5. Only one entry per person and/or per household/ or IP address.
6. Must include your name and valid email address.
7. Only entries from people who haven’t won anything from Field & Feast in the last three months are eligible to win.
8. Winner will be selected at random after 5 p.m. CST Sunday, September 25, 2011, and contacted via email by the show’s producer to coordinate delivery of gift certificate.

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