Little Tiger Eggplant Pizza

The eggplants from Evergreen have grown extremely well. We have Hybrid Tiger and Hybrid Green Doll. The Hybrid Tigers started flowering first, and I set to work hand-pollinating. The pictures of these green and white-striped eggplants on the Evergreen website sold me on both Hybrid Tiger and the Hybrid Green Doll, about which I did no advance research.

After I made sure the flowers were pollinated, I checked back for eggplants but was disappointed to find very little happening on the plants. I checked back a few days later and discovered small, and I mean SMALL, eggplants where the flowers had been. I went onto the Evergreen website to read the description of the Tiger eggplants more closely, and learned that these plants produce "small size fruits". I clicked on the Hybrid Green Doll page, and read that these are also "small," although the Green Dolls are egg-shaped instead of round. According to the Evergreen website, these small eggplants are popular in Thai cooking where they are often cooked whole or stuffed. They are known as "bite-sized" eggplants.

Once I realized the Tigers would never get much larger than a golf ball, I set about harvesting the small round eggplants. I brought them in and asked the kids to guess what they were. They first guessed tomatoes, but when I said no, they quickly guessed eggplant. I was shocked, but apparently my kids have learned their vegetables thanks to our garden.

Instead of using the Tigers in a Thai dish, David made a pizza with eggplant, fresh mozzarella, parmesan and potatoes. It was a knock-out pizza, and the tiny eggplants were great. I think we'll name it the Little Tiger pizza in honor of our bite-sized eggplants.