Antipasto literally means “before the meal” in Italian. Starters, hors d’oeurves, appetizers may signify the same thing in other languages but in our case this was the meal. On the eve of Labor Day, hot and humid as usual in Austin, Texas, I decided we should indulge in a few of my favorites things. A little store bought Calabrase salame, delicious fresh mozzerella, and home baked eggplant and tomotoes. We ended up with platter full of color, texture and flavor.

Start with the tomatoes as they take the longest. The recipe for the tomatoes is on this blog under “oven roasted tomatoes”.

After the tomatoes come out of the oven and they are cooling, start the eggplant. This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman at the NY Times.

• Heat the oven to broil. Cut an eggplant in 1/2, chop an onion ad 2 cloves of garlic and put the mixture into the eggplant. Place in the lowest rack from the broil and check on it in 15 minutes or until the eggplant has collapsed. Let it cool, scoop out the eggplant, onion and garlic and add about 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt. Mix it up and add some garlic powder, salt, pepper and lemon. Season to taste! Delicious, simple and rustic!