The work horse of my cookbook collection is Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.  Just about anything you could possibly want to make is in this book and I’ve yet to find a recipe that I didn’t like or that didn’t work.  Think of it as a modern version of The Joy of Cooking for vegetarians (though, as the title implies, it is for everyone).  It is thoughtfully broken down not only by type of food (soups, salads, egg dishes, breakfast, etc.), but there is also an entire section devoted just to vegetables.  The vegetable section is arranged alphabetically and includes information on varieties, selection, storage & preparation as well as recipes that feature whatever vegetable you may be cooking with.  I have found this particularly useful  when we’ve subscribed to a CSA or whenever I find myself with an abundance of any particular vegetable. Some all-time favorites from this book are the Zucchini Frittata, the Polenta and Olive Oil Cakes and Elliot’s Breakfast Parsnips (yes, really).  This one is a must have.

Last summer, I bought yet another Deborah Madison cookbook: Soups.  For anyone interested in making truly delicious vegetarian soups (stock and all) – this is a great book.  Her instructions are clear, the photography is lovely and the recipes and original and tasty.  I have particularly enjoyed her Rustic Lentil Soup with Spinach and  Celery and Celery Root Soup (a neighbor of mine “gave” me a giant celery root aka celeriac and I found the answer to the question “what do I do with this?”).

One of the most engaging food books I’ve read in quite a while was “A Homemade Life” by Molly Wizenberg. This book is less cookbook and more memoir, but it is a great, heartfelt and terrifically funny read and has some wonderful recipes in it, to boot.  I’ve already mentioned the Banana Bread with Chocolate and Ginger (to die for), but her French Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon has become a staple in my house, the Zucchini Noodles with Pesto were a unique twist on a  summer favorite and the Buckwheat Pancakes are the best I’ve ever made OR had.  This book springs from the author’s years as a food blogger over at Orangette.  She’s got archives back to 2004 and a lot of it ended up in the book, so check her out and if you like her style, buy her book – you won’t regret it!

Turning now to my favorite cooking magazine: Cook’s Illustrated.  I’ve been a subscriber to this magazine for most of the last 10 years or so. It’s great.  It’s ad-free and only comes every other month, but it really has everything you could ever want to know about a particular food or recipe.  Cook’s Illustrated maintains a test kitchen and they arrive at their recipes through a rigorous trial and error process.  The recipes in the magazine are generally seasonal, and each issue usually only has about 10 or 12 recipes in it, but you get an unbelievable amount of  information about each one.  The magazine also does great product reviews on kitchen equipment (knives, rolling pins, vegetable peelers) and ingredients (vanilla, olive oil, mustard) and good articles about technique.   The artwork on the back of the magazine is almost worth the price of a subscription alone. 

A couple of other quick mentions: I recently discovered Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks and she’s a gal after my own heart, but has been doing it for far longer than I and seems to make some money at it.  Also, I just picked up Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manifesto and read it last night.  It was like eating an apple: it was light, yet filling and just felt good.  Some of you have already read Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire or In Defense of Food all of which are much more challenging reads.  Food Rules is something a 10 year old can read, appreciate and understand.  Pick up a copy – leave it on your kitchen table. Have your kids read it.  Talk about food.  Give the book to someone else.

Lastly, my newest favorite food:  Gjetost Cheese.  I’m not sure that it’s technically cheese though it has cheese-like ingredients (whey, milk, goat’s milk, cream).  It sure doesn’t look like cheese (it’s brown) nor does not taste like any other cheese I’ve ever had, either.  However, it does say cheese on the label.  It IS Norwegian, so perhaps something was lost in translation, but heck, if Kraft can get away with calling American “Cheese” cheese, then pretty much anything goes. And this is definitely not American cheese.  The brand is Ski Queen, (if you can believe it) and the name itself lends a somewhat retro feel to it along with the red and white packaging.  As for the taste, it’s somewhere between caramel and goat brie and mozarella.  Sorry, that’s the best I can do.  It’s a bit sweet (my understanding is that the milk is cooked down until the natural sugars in it carmelize), nutty, tangy and salty all at the same time.  The texture is closer to lunch meat than cheese, but the flavor more than makes up for it.  I’ve been snacking on thin shavings with apple slices.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

So, I know I live in California and all, where we barely have an excuse for a winter.  But it still gets cold(ish).  It’s all relative, right?  We’ve (thankfully) had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks and it keeps on coming.  I know I should be grateful and all, given the water crisis, but sometimes that damp chill sets in and I just can’t get warm without full immersion in hot water.  Hats are also helpful, as is tea.  The other thing I find myself doing a lot is looking for things to cook that involve turning the oven on.  Sometimes I stand in the corner of my kitchen with a book and read while something is baking.  Pathetic, I know, but it really does feel nice.

What I keep going back to recently are quick breads.  They are easy, they warm the kitchen AND they make me feel good because I am giving my kids an after school snack that does not come out of a box.  What’s not to love?  Muffins are great, too,  but the wonderful thing about bread is that you can warm up slices the next day in the toaster and it tastes almost as good as it does fresh out of the oven.  I’ve made quick breads before, but I’m always put off by the ungodly amount of oil or butter and sugar that seems to be required in the recipes I’ve found, so while I occasionally baked breads or muffins as a treat for my kids, I rarely ate them myself.  They always seemed more like cake than anything else.  Then last year, my (ex) sister-in-law gave me  A Homemade Life which I devoured rather quickly.  I gave the book as gifts myself and have been working my way through the delicious recipes one by one.  The first recipe I made out of the book was for Banana Bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger.  I brought it to a friend who was recovering from surgery and have made it several times since.  But it’s definitely a treat.  It calls for 6 tablespoons of melted butter, which is less than some other recipes I’ve seen (up to a cup of oil or butter!), but still.  It does, however, call for 1/4 cup of yogurt, which got me thinking.  So I began experimenting and what I found was that it was indeed possible to make truly delicious quick bread with a minimal amount of fat and sugar.  I started fiddling with the banana bread, moved on to pumpkin bread and yesterday made applesauce spice bread.  I think I’ll try a lemony version next, maybe with ginger.  This recipe really is as simple as can be – it takes less than 10 minutes to mix together and then you just throw it into the oven for an hour while you do something else (like stand in the corner of your kitchen with a book!).

Super Quick (and pretty healthy) Applesauce, Pumpkin or Banana – Spice Bread

2 cups of whole wheat pastry or unbleached white flour (or a combination)

1/3 cup of unrefined or regular (devil white) sugar

1/3 cup of brown sugar (I used all brown for the applesauce bread & liked it very much)

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (for pumpkin bread also add 1/4 tsp. each: ginger, nutmeg, allspice & cloves & for banana bread also add 1/2 tsp ginger)

2 eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

1 1/2 cups plain, unsweetened applesauce, mashed bananas (about 3) or pumpkin purée (1 can)

1/3 cup plain, unadulterated yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350.

Oil or butter and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

In a smallish bowl, beat the eggs then add the applesauce or banana or pumpkin, oil or butter, yogurt and vanilla.  Mix well.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir somewhat gently with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.  Be sure all the flour is incorporated, but do not overmix the batter.

Scrape the batter out into the prepared pan, smooth out the top and bake in the center of your oven for about an hour or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 5 or 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and try to wait until it’s cool enough to slice.  My kids like it with a little butter, but I take it straight.

Enjoy!

My vegetable of the month is (drumroll, please)…..CABBAGE!  Woohoo, let’s hear it for cabbage!  Wait, don’t go. I know it’s not the most exciting vegetable, but I’m a recent cabbage convert – I did not grow up eating cabbage.  I think that my parents had a certain aversion to it because it was somehow associated with poverty.  But it was Cato the Elder who declared that it was cabbage ….”which surpasses all other vegetables”, so I’m in good company here.  Cabbage is (surprisingly) an excellent source of vitamin C, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals.  It’s also pretty high in fiber, so it’s filling.  The three most common types of cabbage are the plain old green head of cabbage, the smaller, red cabbage and savoy cabbage, which is longer-leafed and somewhat resembles swiss chard.  I like them all.  I like it raw in soft tofu tacos, in salads (red) or slaws (no mayo, please!), but my recent fave features cooked cabbage that is combined with sauteed leeks and steamed potatoes, drizzled with brown butter and then topped with a little Fontina cheese and baked.  You may call it a Gratin de Chou if you need to fancy it up, but I’m calling it Cabbage Gratin with Potatoes and Leeks.

Here is a photograph of the finished dish – see it’s pretty homely.  But trust me, it’s delicious. Here is my recipe:

2 Tablespoons of brown butter (instructions follow)

1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil

2 large leeks, rinsed and thinly sliced (whites only)

a few pinches of dried sage or several leaves fresh (chopped)

salt & pepper

1 small head of green cabbage or about 1/2 a regular savoy cabbage, cut into 2-inch chunks

2 or 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

4 or 5 oz of buckwheat soba noodles (optional)

1 cup of grated Fontina cheese

To make the brown butter, melt 1/2 stick of unsalted butter over low heat, continue cooking for 20-30 minutes, until the solids have separated (and sank to the bottom of the pan) and the butter is a nutty, golden-brown color.  Set aside.

Lightly coat a 9×13 glass pan with oil or butter.  Preheat the oven to 400.

Warm the olive oil in a large pan or dutch oven.  Add the leeks and a few pinches of salt and saute for 10 minutes or until almost tender (you may cover the pan, if you like).  Meanwhile, steam the cubed potatoes in a little water for about 10 minutes. Drain.  When the leeks are tender, add the sage, cabbage and a few more pinches of salt and cook until the cabbage is nearly tender, about another 10 minutes – (all of the liquid should cook off).

If you’d like to use the buckwheat noodles (I like it both ways), cook them in boiling, salted water for only about 4 minutes before draining.  I like to break the noodles in half before cooking them, too.  Add to the leeks and cabbage and season with salt and pepper.

Layer the leek-cabbage-buckwheat mixture in the greased pan with the potatoes and cheese – a layer of 1/2 the cabbage mixture, followed by 1/2 the potatoes, followed by 1/3 of the cheese.  Then start again: the rest of the cabbage mixture and the rest of the potatoes.  Before you top it with the rest of the cheese, drizzle the whole thing with the brown butter.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until it is browned in places on top.

If you included the buckwheat noodles you might not need to serve anything else with this dish.  You may not, even if you didn’t.  A crunchy (not cabbage) salad would be nice or something with a little color, like carrots.

Enjoy!

As I’ve mentioned before, I am the mother of a Picky Eater.  The kid will not eat a fruit or vegetable in its natural state. or even lightly steamed.  For a fruit or vegetable to enter the mouth of the Picky Eater it has to be unrecognizable.   It’s been a long battle and, yes, I know that food isn’t supposed to be a battle.  The dinner table is a sacred space and should be stress-free and eating should be an enjoyable experience for everyone free of coercion and tears.  Fighting with your kids over food may lead to eating disorders later in life and god knows how many years of therapy later.  And I really do try not to fight about it.  We tried the “you must eat your vegetables” tactic for a while and, it really wasn’t successful at all.  Everyone was unhappy.   We’ve gone the “take one bite” route (he’s surprisingly strong-willed).  We’ve tried bribery (more tears) and we’ve tried disguising and hiding vegetables in all sorts of things – smearing the thinnest veneer of avocado on the inside of a quesadilla (is it really worth the effort?), sneaking a 1/4 inch cube of mashed up cooked carrot into a scrambled egg and on and on.  This last tactic has met with some success, in that he will eat certain vegetables presented certain ways.  But he still would not willingly ever choose to eat a vegetable.  We’ve also, from time to time (when I just don’t have the energy),  let it go completely and figured “he’d just come around to eating fruits and veggies in his own time”.  And while we still go through phases of frustration and fall back on one of our failed tactics, we mostly believe that this last is true.  Progress has been made.  I’ve mentioned cream of tomato soup in a previous post, but also tomato sauce (without lumps!) may be put over spaghetti.  Tostadas with avocado (see above) or a smear of refried beans will be eaten without complaint.  And, joy of joys, broccoli souffle has become a key item in my fall/winter cooking repertoire. I’m thankful for small miracles.

Souffle, you say?  But aren’t they difficult and tempermental?  Phooey, as Julia would say.  If you can successfully separate an egg, you can make a souffle.  Prep time is about half an hour, then another half an hour to bake, but it really is lovely and quite delicious and this one is not terribly decadent.

Broccoli Souffle

butter, plus 2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 1/4 cups of milk (I use 2%)

2 slices of onion or green onion or leek, or a clove of mashed garlic

1 bay leaf,

1 sprig of fresh thyme and/or parsley (or a pinch each of dried)

3 T unsalted butter

3 T unbleached flour

salt & pepper

pinch of nutmeg

1 small head of broccoli, chopped.

6 egg whites

4 egg yolks (us the 2 left over in scrambled eggs or for baking)

about 1 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 400.  Butter a 9×13 inch glass baking dish (you may use a real souffle dish if you have one, but it cooks much faster in a larger, shallower pan) and coat the bottom with the grated parmesan.

Heat the milk with the onion and herbs until small bubbles start to form along the edges of the pan (just before boiling).  Turn off the heat and allow the herbs to steep in the milk for about 15 minutes.  Strain.

While the milk and herbs are steeping, steam the broccoli in a small saucepan in a little bit of water (I often transfer the milk & herbs to a pyrex measuring cup to steep and use the same pot to cook the broccoli).

Put the broccoli and half the strained/steeped milk into a blender and puree (according to your family’s lump-tolerance).

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form peaks.

Melt the butter in a medium or large saucepan.  When foamy, add the flour and whisk over low heat for a few minutes.  Add the milk and the milk-broccoli mixture all at once to the butter and flour and whisk vigorously until it is smooth and thickened.  Add 1/2 tsp. salt, some pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.  Turn off the heat.  Stir in the egg yolks one at a time (just slide them out of the bowl one by one).  Once the yolks are blended in, stir in the cheese.

Add about 1/4 of the beaten egg whites to the broccoli mixture and stir gently to mix.  Then fold the egg white/broccoli mixture into the rest of the egg whites –  use a light hand and a folding, rather than stirring, motion to do this.  It’s okay if it doesn’t look completely combined, but it should be fairly uniform in color.

Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and put the dish into the oven.  Lower the temperature to 375 and bake for 30 minutes, until it is golden brown on top.

Serve immediately with roasted squash, potatoes and/or salad.

Enjoy!

The wind is blowing outside and the little birds in the pomegranate and grapefruit trees outside my window are pretty excited about something.  I’m pretty sure they are talking about the storm that is coming our way soon.  I expect it will start pouring rain just as I get in the car to drive to Sacramento.  These colder days that are finally here have me baking a lot.  We held off on using our heater until a week ago, when it finally got down to 58 degrees downstairs one morning and I didn’t think I could put on any more layers and still be able to make breakfast.  But before that, I found myself finding excuses to bake things just to warm up the house!  I’ve got a copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day sitting in my kitchen and baking bread regularly at home is one of my winter projects – this book makes it sounds so easy and really, is there anything better than the smell of baking bread?  Plus, it’s another great excuse to turn on the oven and warm up the house!

Fall is also a natural time for winter squash – I absolutely adore it when the winter squash comes out  in the markets and those piles of butternut, delicata, acorn, spaghetti and banana squash are everywhere.  Their shapes are so lovely and colorful and they are so easy to cook with.  I used to be a big fan of butternut squash soup.  I was partial to Annie Sommerville’s recipe in Fields of Greens, but I find most squash soups too cloyingly sweet now for my taste.  I’m not sure what happened there.  But I do love winter squash. 

Delicata squash is one of the easiest to work with because it is so small.  They are oblong with alternating orange and green stripes and are usually 5-6″ long.  Last night, I made this recipe:

Delicata Squash Crescents

1 large or 2 small delicata squash (to serve 2 people)

1 tablespoon of olive or canola oil

parsley (fresh or dried)

salt & pepper

Cut the ends off the squash and peel it (them).  Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.  Slice the squash into crescents about 1/4 – 1/2′ thick.  Heat the oil in a (preferably cast iron) skillet, add the sliced squash and give it all a stir.  Reduce the heat to medium low and cook for about 10-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes to make sure that all of the little crescents are getting browned on both sides.  Once the squash is browned on both sides and tender, toss it with the parsley, salt & pepper and serve.  So yummy!  You can also add a clove of crushed garlic to the oil along with the squash if you feel in the mood.

My other favorite super-simple squash recipe uses butternut squash.  Butternut squash is a little intimidating because they are usually bigger and a bit more difficult to peel.  If you have a good sharp vegetable peeler, it’s no problem, so if you find yourself having difficulty peeling squash with the peeler you have, it might be time to buy a new one.  I highly recommend OXO’s Good Grips i-series peeler.  It’s quite sharp, though, so be careful and don’t let small kids use it!  This recipe takes only minutes to prep, but a while to bake, so a little advanced planning is required.  However, you’ll be rewarded with a delightful smelling and very warm kitchen!

Slow-baked Butternut Squash

1 medium (about 2 lbs, maybe more) butternut squash

4-5 cloves of garlic, pressed or finely chopped

1/4 cup of chopped Italian (or regular) parsley (or a few tablespoons dried, if that’s all you have)

salt & pepper

scant 1/4 c of flour

olive oil

Preheat your oven to 325.  Oil a shallow gratin or earthenware dish or a regular 9×13 baking dish.  Peel the squash and cut it into evenly sized 1/2″ cubes (you can make them larger, but it won’t be quite as good).  Toss the cubes with the garlic, parsley, salt & pepper, then add the flour and toss again.  Pile all of the squash into the baking dish and drizzle olive oil all over the top.  Bake uncovered for about 2 (yes, two!) hours. The squash should be lightly browned, with a  crunchy crust on the outside, but delightfully tender on the inside.

Enjoy!

I am the mother to one of the world’s pickiest eaters.  No, really.  I tell people this and they say “oh, I know, my kid is picky, too”, but once we start talking about it in more detail, most people don’t actually believe the limitations my child has put on his diet:   no meat (won’t touch it).  no beans.  no fruits (except in smoothies, fruit “leather” and applesauce).  and almost no vegetables.  His exceptions are avocado (IN a quesadilla, not alone), summer squash (again must be IN a frittata) and, drumroll please, tomato soup.   Seriously, that’s it.  It makes me crazy, to be sure.  For the record, my other child is a “good” eater and always has been.  She’ll try just about anything once and enjoys a wide variety of healthy foods.  I’m grateful for this because I know that it’s not something that I did to make kid number two the way he is.  He’s just that way all by himself.  Believe me, we’ve had battles, employed a wide variety of strategies to to get him to eat a more varied diet, but to no avail.  In the end, it’s just not worth it to me to ruin dinner time by arguing about what he eats.  However, I really don’t like cooking him separate food – I think it’s important that he eat what everyone else is eating even if he doesn’t eat it all. Plus it’s a pain to be a short order cook.

So, we eat a lot of soup and a lot of cream of tomato soup, in particular.  And I do love it – there is nothing more comforting, warming and nourishing than a good bowl of homemade soup.  Soup makes a simple yet satisfying dinner when paired with a salad and bread with cheese (or grilled cheese!).  And leftover soup is always better the next day for lunch.

I don’t use a lot of canned foods.  However, this recipe (and pumpkin pie) are two exceptions to that rule.  There are a great many things where fresh ingredients make a huge difference, but in my opinion tomato soup is just not one of them (gazpacho on the other hand…).  Plus, it’s a bit of a  process to blanch tomatoes, skin them & strain the seeds out.  I’m willing to do this sometimes, for other recipes, but on weeknights when I just need to get dinner on the table, I won’t take the time.  This recipe is quick and easy – it would be a great one to make with one of the small people in your life.  It calls  for 2 different kinds of canned tomatoes, but if what you have on hand is a 28 0z can of diced or crushed plain tomatoes, by all means use that.  Or use all roasted.  It’s hard to go wrong.

Cream of Tomato Soup

1 Tablespoon of olive oil or butter

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 teaspoon of dried basil

1 pinch of curry powder or cloves (optional)

2 Tablespoons of flour

1-14 oz can of crushed tomatoes

1-14 oz can of roasted tomatoes (I use Muir Glen)

a pinch of baking soda

2 1/2 cups of vegetable stock, chicken stock or water

1 1/2 cups of milk (any %)

salt & pepper to taste

tomato paste (optional – only use if needed to thicken/add flavor)

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot or dutch oven over medium heat.  Add the onion, basil and curry or cloves and cook, stirring a little, for about 5 minutes.  Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir to combine, then add the tomatoes, baking soda and stock.  Stir to blend and bring to a gentle boil.  Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for about 20 minutes.  Allow to cool briefly and then either puree in a blender until smooth or use your immersion blender if you have one.  Return to the soup pot, add the milk and season with salt & pepper.  If it’s too thick, add a little more milk or stock.  If it’s too thin or if the flavor isn’t as rich as you like, add a tablespoon of tomato paste.  Reheat over a low flame (don’t boil!) and serve hot with freshly ground pepper and a pinch of grated parmesan cheese, if you like.

But last week, even when it didn’t feel remotely like autumn, we had to celebrate the equinox.  It’s one of our quirky traditions.  We are not a religious family.  Our idea of church is a walk in the woods.  We celebrate most of the “normal”  holidays, but in a pagan, pre-Christian way for the most part.  And for different reasons, of course.  But we also like to invent our own holidays  and traditions and some years back I happened to bake a pumpkin pie on the first day of autumn.  We had cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  Somehow, this really stuck with my kids (probably the pie), and the first day of autumn has become a holiday of sorts and I make the traditional meal, even when it’s nearly 100 degrees.  It really is a very lovely thing to enjoy together.

My recipe for pumpkin pie is more spice-intensive than most pumpkin pies.  It comes from my maternal grandmother and is the pie I grew up eating for Thanksgiving.  I have it memorized.

Grandma Carpenter’s Pumpkin Pie

3/4 – 1 cup of sugar (I use raw)

1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. each:  ground allspice, ground cloves, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, salt

2 eggs

1 can of evaporated milk (about 1 2/3 cups)

1 can pumpkin (not pie mix!) – about 1 1/2 cups

Preheat your oven to 425.

Make a pie crust and roll it out into a 9″ deep or 10″ regular pie shell (or purchase a pre-made crust if you don’t make pie crust!)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  I usually use a whisk to mix everything together, but you could use a hand mixer or your Kitchen Aid. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the eggs & spices have been incorporated into everything.

Pour the custard mix into the unbaked pie crust.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 and continue baking for another 40 or 45 minutes.

Test the pie by giving it a little shake.  If it looks at all jiggly, continue baking for 5 minutes at a time until it seems pretty firm.

Cool completely before eating.  Serve with softly whipped, lightly sweetened cream.

Have another piece for breakfast the next day; it will be even better.

What traditions have you created with your family?  I’d love to hear them!

Happy fall!

On the other hand, (some) 7 year-olds do not yet enjoy vegetables and might not completely appreciate a truly amazing salad.  Also, (most) 7 year-olds do not get to go out for a lovely lunch with a dear, new(ish) friend on a Friday afternoon and talk about families and camping and birthdays and writing and dreaming and community and food and passionate living.

Maybe I will turn 43 after all.

P.S. If you live in Davis and are wondering about my salad, it can be found at the Farmer’s Kitchen Cafe on 4th Street between E & F.  Their market salad has absolutely everything that’s in season in it and was delicious.

The other night it was 5 pm and I still wasn’t sure what we were having for dinner.  It’s been a long and busy week with both the kids and my husband back at school and soccer season in full swing.  I walked out to the garden to consider my options and picked a couple of eggplant, a squash, 2 tomatoes and a handful of basil and headed home to make one of my favorite summer foods: ratatouille.

I know that there are a lot of people, and perhaps you are one of them, who do not like eggplant.  And I’m sorry about that.  I’d recommend that you to try the recipe anyhow, but be sure to make it with fresh, Japanese-style eggplant (the long, skinny kind) rather than the larger, globe variety.  Japanese eggplant tends to be less bitter and it definitely has fewer seeds, which many people find objectionable.  If you are not sure how fresh your eggplant is, you can always slice it & salt it first to draw out the bitter juices and then quickly rinse the slices & pat them dry before cooking. You may use either fresh or canned tomatoes (or a combination of both, depending on what you have on hand).  If you use fresh tomatoes, it’s best to skin them first:  core the tomato & plunge it into boiling water for about 10 seconds (I often use the water I’m boiling for the polenta I’m making to go with the ratatouille).  Rinse the tomatoes in cool water & slip the skins off, then slice the tomatoes in half & squeeze out the seeds into a small bowl &  strain the juice to add to the stew.

The quantities of the ingredients listed below are only a suggestion – you may increase or decrease the amounts of the different vegetables depending upon what’s available – it’s hard to go wrong!

Ratatouille

olive oil

3-4 cloves of garlic, sliced or crushed

1/2 large or one medium red onion, chopped or sliced

2 Japanese eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes

1 medium red, orange or yellow bell pepper, cut into 1 inch square pieces

1 large or 2 small summer squash, any variety: zucchini, patty pan, crookneck, etc., cut in half lengthwise & thickly sliced

2 large fresh tomatoes, peeled, de-seeded & diced or 1 can of diced tomatoes

1 handful of basil, chopped

salt & pepper

Warm 2T of the olive oil over medium heat in a deep casserole pot or dutch oven.  Add the onion and 1 clove of chopped/minced/pressed garlic and a little salt.  Cook until the onion begins to brown, about 5 minutes.  Add the eggplant, another tablespoon of oil, another clove of chopped garlic and a little more salt, stir to coat & cook another 5 minutes.  Add the pepper and squash and another clove of chopped garlic & cook an other 5 minutes.  Finally, add the tomatoes and their strained juices and the last clove of chopped garlic (if you dare!) and a few more pinches of salt.  Bring to a simmer, add half the basil and then cover and lower the heat.

How long you cook your ratatouille  is entirely up to you and there are a wide range of opinions on the matter.   It will be edible (delicious, even) after 10 or 15 minutes.  The vegetables will cooked, but they will still be recognizable, (more al dente) and the flavors will be lighter.  If you cook it 30 minutes or longer, everything starts to fall apart and simultaneously come together – the vegetables get mushy and nearly unrecognizable, but the flavors really deepen and sweeten, even.  My French neighbor (ever true to her heritage) claims that this is the “real” way to make ratatouille and after experimenting with the timing over the years, I’ve gone from liking a less cooked, toothier version to a more cooked, French version.  It is a recipe of French origin, after all!  You decide which one you prefer, but if you are eggplant-phobic, you’d probably enjoy the latter, more cooked version best.

Stir in the remainder of the basil just before serving and add salt & pepper to taste.  As I mentioned before, I enjoy my ratatouille over (soft) polenta most often, but it’s also good with rice or even by itself with some crusty slices of bread on the side.  I’m sure it would also be tasty served over some pasta.  One of the best things about this dish is that it’s actually better the next day.  It’s even good cold on crackers or toasts, especially if you add some chopped olives and/or capers.

Enjoy!

A friend of mine was talking about her Bucket List the other day.  You know, those lists of things that people want to do before they die?  I am a big fan of lists.  In my world, if it’s not on a list, it might not get done.  Some of my lists are mental, but more often that not, I like to write things down.  It used to be that I wrote things down more for the joy of crossing them off the list, but I’ve learned that this is an empty victory since the list is never really completed.  And lately I’ve noticed that  my life feels so full that I write things down so that I won’t forget them.   When my hubby & I were first dating, we kept a little notebook with lists of things like places we’d gone together, places we wanted to travel to, birds we’d seen, that sort of thing.  Fun things.  But somewhere along the way (oh, right around the time our first child was born), we stopped making those lists.  Life got in the way and we lost the habit, but when my friend mentioned her Bucket List, I started thinking about mine and was appalled that I couldn’t really come up with much of anything to put on mine.  Have I really run out of dreams?  I don’t think I have, but I do think that I have not been nurturing them properly.  Well, that stops now.  I’m starting a new list.  One that I can see and add to and cross things off of.  The first thing I’m putting on my list is quite simple and needs little explanation: spend more time at the beach.  We were camping last weekend with friends and spent many glorious hours at the beach.  With pie.

Beach + ollallieberry pie + good friends + lots of forks = bliss.  I highly recommend it.