I finally had the time — and ingredients — to make baba ganoush from those eggplants that I bought on Wednesday. As I checked over several recipes last night, I noticed that most of them called for oven-roasting the eggplants. As the mercury held steady at about 98 degrees yesterday evening, turning on the oven was out of the question.

Instead, I used the grill. As hot as I might have been out on the deck every few minutes checking for blistered skins, the grill wasn’t going to heat up the house.

David Lebovitz’s recipe, the one I ended up using, calls for charring the skins over a gas stove or under a broiler. Well, since the stove and oven were off-limits, I used our gas grill in the same way I’ve charred peppers for chiles rellenos. It worked pretty well.

I turned the burners to medium-high and made sure to turn the eggplants occasionally so all sides were almost evenly blackened. Then, I turned the burners way down, moved the eggplants to the cooler side of the grill and let them roast away. They were ready when they gave way to a soft squeeze. Also, instead of scooping out the insides to use in the dip, all you need to do is peel away the skin. When properly charred, and after letting them rest until cool, it should be really easy to do.

The baba ganoush is nothing special to look at, but it tastes pretty good. And after cooling in the fridge, the dip makes for a refreshing treat during this hot weather.