Movie Star Dinner

I don't know if it's because of the movie or not but anytime I mention that I am making ratatouille for dinner, my daughter is thrilled! What's not to be thrilled about? It's a great way to use up and serve a bunch of different veggies that you might have lying around. It requires very little effort and it's pretty healthy. To top off the list, it tastes good!

There are many different variations and methods but my version is quite simple. The especially exciting aspect of the one I made this week was that it featured the lone eggplant that I was able to harvest from our garden this year! I am pretty sure it will be the only one because that plant was small.

Isn't it cute?!

The list of ingredients isn't long and you can easily change it up. Sometimes I don't have eggplant so I just put extra squash or zucchini. If I'm really bored, I'll layer each piece but this last casserole was just tossed together. No one noticed that anything was different so next time I need to kill some time, maybe I'll just read a magazine.

This pan is a 2.75 liter capacity, just so you have an idea.

Ratatouille (much more fun to say if you roll the r and really emphasize the t's. :-D)

*Any combination of 4-5 medium eggplants, zucchinis and squash sliced into medallions.

*One medium sliced onion (or two small), chopped.

Mix them all up coat with a drizzle of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss in some fresh or dried thyme (about 1.5 tsp) Top it off with homemade breadcrumbs and fresh parmesan cheese. If you want to get the breadcrumbs dark like the picture, give it a spritz of cooking spray.

Bake at 350 for about 30-40 minutes.

This is optional but sometimes I will heat up a small can of tomato sauce and add a splash of heavy cream. I put a ladle full on a plate and then spoon the ratatouille on top. It makes for a more satisfying main course. My family (2 adults and 1 child) will demolish the entire thing in one sitting.

Souvenirs

Okay, here is the first of several food posts that will be connected to our trip to Europe this summer. I thought I'd start them off with a picture and a list of all of the stuff we brought back home with us! The list of what we are allowed to bring back into the U.S. is always changing so I'd check the website for customs before you plan a trip anywhere. We managed to bring everything back into the country without any trouble which was a huge relief! I would have been devastated to have to throw any of this loot away!!!

Starting with the back row, from the left: that big back in the back of the photo is grey salt from France. The two smaller jars next to it are also salt. Red wine salt and floral salt (that smells amazing!). The two bags are jasmine flowers that I plan on using to flavor salt and sugar. I saw some jasmine sugar in Germany and thought it was a cool idea! The other bag is Harissa spices. I've never seen it where it hadn't already been made into a paste. The tall bottle is my holy grail. One of the things I planned on dropping a huge wad of cash on was a bottle of kirschwassser. This was partly inspired by a post from David Lebovitz and also by the fact that all I can find over here in the U.S. is the cheapo stuff. Genuine kirsch is a thing of beauty. The best is found in Austria and I stumbled across an amazing gourmet store in Germany that imported it. The last three things in the back are tea. The pink canister is a floral black tea from Paris and the striped bags are white tea and oolong tea from Germany. I haven't tried the first one yet but the other two are excellent! White and oolong tea are Chris' favorites. The jar in front of the tea bags came from the same shop and it is vanilla honey.

There is a little sign on the right that must have come from an old bakery. I got it at a flea market in Paris and it's sitting in my kitchen. The toys in the middle are mostly for making cookies. The wooden blocks are springerle molds from Germany. Let me tell you that I've spent a good part of the year searching for these bad boys and I found them within my first 24 hours over there! I was absolutely delighted! I got an owl, a bird, a few Christmas themed and some Valentine's day themed molds. I am still searching for a cameo and hopefully I will find one someday. There are also various cookie cutters from the same shop. A bird, a flying pig, a button (perfect for mine and Molly's Coraline themed Halloween costumes!), Saturn and a few lovely rectangular shapes. I got some Dutch duckie salt and pepper shakers from Amsterdam (Chris picked these out) and the small glass tube is vanilla from a Moroccan grocery store in Paris. Last but not least, the big canister has caramels from France. They are absolutely delicious and I allow myself to have one as a treat from time to time. Remember, it was an obsession for almost the entire trip!

On the gardening front, we also brought some red tulip bulbs from Amsterdam that we will plant this coming season. They're pretty cool looking! I'd never seen tulips that looked like these guys. I was absolutely blown away by the amazing selection of bulbs in Holland. Unfortunately, I was only able to shop from a small selection that was certified for entry into North America. We did declare them and after they saw the certification, they let us through with no problems.

Speaking of gardening....I'd better get my machete out and clear my mini Amazon since I have the day off today and the weather is nice!! Au revoir!!

Closer to Home

I know I promised a lot of European food posts and they are coming! However, I've been so delighted with the pasts few harvests from our garden that I wanted to write about it.

Considering the fact that this is our very first year gardening, I would go as far as to call it very successful! We've managed to get several good meals and snacks from our plot and despite the fact that we've really been struggling with weeds and the weather (everything from lots of rain to lots of heat). The edible flowers are really the only thing that didn't really do much of anything. Pffft!

The other day, we ate almost entirely from our garden. We had maple glazed carrots, an heirloom tomato salad and a kale medley cooked into some scrambled eggs that we bought from our friends over at Silver Forge. I've definitely learned a lot about how things grow. It's amazing how much more in touch I feel with fruits and veggies after the last few years of shopping at the farmers market and educating myself on how stuff gets on my plate. That's one of the reasons why this meal felt so empowering. I dug those carrots up a few hours before we ate them!

I tried to keep it all on the simple side. Being a southern girl, a side of sliced tomatoes are a common sight on the dinner table during the late summer months. We have about four different heirloom varieties growing in our garden right now. It's pretty funny because we have way more tomato plants in our plot than we originally planted! They're popping up everywhere! I won't plant nearly as much kale as I did this year. One plant really produces a lot of leaves! We have about 12 so we're drowning in it. I do want to plant the curly type so I can make kale chips. The two varieties I have now don't do so well in that respect. They're excellent when cooked in a little olive oil and some garlic though. My family complains that the curly kind is too tough when I cook it that way. The flat leafers are more tender. Especially the Italian. The carrots are a lot of fun to harvest. I planted the seeds close together so a small area is pretty densely packed with them. We have a long way to go before they're gone. We have plans for these babies! Chris' birthday is next month and I'm excited to make him a carrot cake!

We have a nice selection to choose from for fall planting. Unfortunately, we also have a LOT of work to do in our plot before it's ready. I jokingly call it The Mini Amazon because the weeds are crazy!! It's going to take hours to clear them. One of our fellow plotters covered her garden in newspaper and then layered it with grass clippings from the recycling center here in town. She said she hasn't had a problem with weeds at all this year. I think it will definitely be worth giving that a try next spring. We have to have the plot completely cleared by the first week of December so I am hoping to get it turned around by the end of the month so we can harvest before then.

I know....wild stuff!

Pesto Change-O!

This is my overgrown herb box. We bought it from the farmer's market about a month ago and it as pretty much tripled in size! I'd been wanting to get some more plants for the house and this once is great because it serves two purposes! It looks good and it tastes good!

The basil leaves were starting to look like elephant ears so we plucked several of them and I made some pesto. I toasted the pine nuts ahead of time and then combined them with the leaves and drizzled some garlic infused olive oil to bind it. I mashed it all up with a mortar and pestle and seasoned with salt + pepper. The only thing I would have added is lemon juice but I didn't have any at the time. It would have brightened it up a bit!

I had some prepackaged gnocchi from Trader Joe's in my cabinet and decided it would be a nice vehicle for some homemade pesto. Chris is somewhat of a gnocchi expert and he had his doubts but he didn't stop me. It's not a common dish in the south and I only really got into it when I moved up here but I love it! It's difficult not to love cute little dumplings made of potatoes!

The pesto was sort of lacking since my original lemony pick up idea was dashed so I went back to the drawing board and decided to mix it with some browned butter. I consider this to be my Ace in the Hole. It is my theory that there is nothing that brown butter can't cure. It takes a lot of attention but doesn't require too much effort. Once it was ready, I immediately dropped the pesto in and it created a delectable sizzling sound! I believe Emeril would say BAM! in a situation like this.

After that, I tossed it into the gnocchi and served it for dinner. Chris no longer doubts me. We've had a pestoesque dinner two nights in a row now. Last night was heirloom white beans with an arugula and walnut pesto. I think it's time for a change tonight!

Baby's All Grown Up!

Remember my tiny Red Russian Kale sprout?

It's all grown up and ready to eat!

We harvested some this week.  I couldn't resist clipping a few leaves and eating them right away.  How much fresher can you get than that?  It tasted amazing!!!  I will probably try to make some sort of salad with it.  I need to start coming up with some ideas because I have enough kale in our garden right now to feed an army!  We have the Red Russian as well as Italian!  

I am so pleased with how our garden is turning out!  I honestly was not expecting these radiant results from our very first year.  We've been told by a few other gardeners that it's difficult to start things from seeds in the soil at the community garden.  Many of the other plot owners bought seedlings and plants.  Their crops were towering over ours for the longest time and it was difficult not to have a little bit of garden envy.  My mouth still waters when I look at the plot right next to ours that is bursting with collards.  It's no longer an issue now because I can simply harvest some of my own delicious greens!  I am already plotting another roundfor the fall and collards will definitely be one of them.  We put in some organic heirloom tomatoes, some eggplants, peppers and some strawberries in the past few weeks.  These were all purchased from the farmers market.  So many of the vendors had seedlings for sale that they were difficult to resist.  I'd also like to plant some squash and maybe some onions if it's still seasonable to do so.  I think it would be awesome to throw together a ratatouille from homegrown veggies!  

Carley, one of the farmers at the market, told me that if we were able to grow things this year then we should be set because it's been difficult at her farm.  We've had a LOT of rain this week and we're forecasted to have lots more next week as well so hopefully that won't put to much of a damper on things.  The sunshine that's predicted for this weekend should help.  It's also supposed to be pretty warm so that will dry things up.  Chris tilled in a bunch of organic compost (chicken manure) that we got from our friends Shannon and Eliezer.  I still laugh at the look on my husband's face as he carried that sack of crap from the car.  You would have think he had pure gold in that bag, he was so excited!  It's so nice to have finally found something to really do together and to bond over.  We were looking for something new to take on and this has really been perfect.  

Happy Earth Day!!!

My Red Russian kale sprout wanted to say Hello!

Let the Sunshine in.

So despite the fact that it started out looking gloomy and damp, today turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!  I went over to the garden and rolled back the plastic coverings.  I still have them secured to the edges so all I have to do now is unroll them and secure the other ends.  It will be a much easier operation if I have to protect the seeds again!  I is smart.

I haven't seen any sign of green peeking out yet from the ones I started in the house last week.  I watered them with leftover blue tea (from San Francisco) this morning.  Can't hurt, right?  I am sure they appreciated the antioxidants.*  

Last night we had 13 bean soup for dinner.  This is twice in one week that I have remembered to soak my beans overnight!  When I was younger, I used to marvel at freshly cooked beans.  I know I am not the only one who has ever been intimidated by the process.  I used canned beans for the longest time and still do for the sake of convenience.  Especially if I am throwing something together at the last minute.  However, I've become reasonably proficient in cooking them from scratch.  Unless I am following a particularly ethnic recipe that calls for specific seasonings, I usually flavor them all the same way.  

I use: sea salt, bay leaves (about four), bruised garlic**, an onion and a bit of freshly ground black pepper.  

Beans and Greens.  A match made in Heaven.

Depending on the type of bean, the cooking time will vary.  Lentils usually don't take longer than an hour or so but anything larger (pintos and such) tends to take at least three.  My trusty Le Creuset Dutch oven cooks them up real nice.  About half of the time, my attention turns to other things and the beans will scorch at the bottom because I forget to add additional water but even then, they are still good.  I can admit this now because I've gotten over the shame of buring my beans.  It happens to the best of us.

*Edit: We saw some kale and spinach peeking out just now!!!!

**Using the flat side of a chopping knife to smash a garlic clove.

Spoke too soon.

Just when I make the grand announcement that spring is here.....today it is 48 degrees and raining.  The low temps are actually not a terrible thing because my greens will like it but the fact that it is supposed to rain for the next three days worried me so I took some giant trash bags out to our plot and secured them over our seeds.  I didn't have enough for the radishes and leeks so hopefully they will be okay.  If it gets really bad, I'll go back tomorrow and cover them.  

Despite the nastiness, I'm still thankful for the fact that we actually have four seasons here in New Jersey.  In the south, it goes from cold to hot.  The transition is to be savored.  

I thought my brother-in-law Brian was coming over for dinner tonight but he is coming over tomorrow instead.  He has his own buisness with a focus on freelance hardscape, landscape and other odd jobs and does excellent work.  We have a few home improvement things we need done around here so he's going to come and give us an estimate.  I wasn't sure about dinner.  I am making 13 bean soup so we can use up the rest of the crappy cornbread from McCaffrey's.  I have one more day to contemplate how to feed Brian.  Let me put it this way:  If there is no meat, I do not eat.  That's a direct quote. 

Ice cream, you scream!

There's an ice cream truck outside my house!!!  I haven't heard one of those in ages!  I also got my first sunburn of the year this weekend so I'd say that spring is definitely here!  

We spent all day gardening in our plot!  We weeded, tilled and planted lots of seeds!  I read that if you bury strips of newspaper in between the rows of seeds that it helps slow down weeds.  I tried it and we'll see if it works.  

What did we plant?

Broccoli Raab

Kale - Italian and Red Russian

Baby spinach

French breakfast radishes

French baby leeks

A blend of colored carrots (white, orange, red, purple...)

We also planted scarlet carrots

Grow babies!  Grow!

Sowing the Seeds of Love

Well, I know I've been lax....which is pretty sad considering this is only my second post!  Ha!

It's not like I don't have stuff to talk about either.  I just haven't been in much of a blogging mood I guess.  

I did some seed shopping this weekend.  I hit up Smith and Hawken because my friend Shannon recommended it.  The only other time I've been in that store was with her, actually!  I really love going in there but I don't actually have the budget to shop there very often!  Luckily, seeds aren't that expensive!  Okay, one packet of seeds was $11 (shhhh, don't tell my husband!) but the rest were $3 or less.  The swanky $11 seeds are edible flowers and I'm really excited about them!  I'm trying to figure out the best place to plant them!  I will probably have space in our public garden plot.  I suppose I can just block a small section off just for these bloomers.  

We're planning on tilling and stuff this weekend.  The Easter Bunny brought my whole family some gardening tools!  That rabbit is pretty smart!  

Today I started some seedlings that will (hopefully) sprout and grow over the next few weeks.  I am using some old egg cartons.  I have four so that means that I planted 48 seeds!  Once I finish this current dozen from our friends over at Silver Forge Farm, I'll use it as well.  What did I plant?

Three varieties of kale (I LOVE me some leafy greens)

TWELVE varieties of heirloom tomatoes (most of them were from seeds I saved from last year)

Three varieties of eggplants

Four varieties of bell peppers

Zucchini (just one kind!)

Baby spinach

That's it for now.  I have some baby leeks, carrots and radishes waiting to go in the ground!    

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers “Grow, grow”. The Talmud