ratatouille

So, before you ask...no. This is not the dish from the movie. Though I have watched the movie an embarrassing number of times.

I haven't had that Thomas Keller rendition, but honestly, I think this is better. Simple, unassuming, delicious. This dish is proof that vegetables don't have to be boring.

Making ratatouille is mostly a question of technique. The key lies in "sweating"--over low heat, getting all of the water out of the veggies and releasing flavors without caramelizing and locking them in.

When you cook this way, something magic happens. The eggplant unravels softly into something far and away from horrid dining hall renditions of eggplant--delicate, mild, but delectable. Everything just sort of melds together in such a lovely way. Your ratatouille will be done in an hour--most recipes get it done in 30 minutes--but if I've got longer I just let it stew away to get all those flavors out.

It's the best to make when you've got gorgeous seasonal summer vegetables, but for those of you in frigid climates like me who say, "I just want some vegetables, dammit!"--well, it's okay if you use the stuff in the stores. It still tastes good. I won't tell if you don't. If you've got good tomatoes, add a few, but I refuse to add those horrid zombie tomatoes that are in PNW stores in February. It doesn't bear thinking about.

I eat it by the bowl on its own, but it's the best thing in the world on a sandwich with a meat--t(of)urkey works well--and a cheese, and it ages well (everyone can love that, right?)

Plus it's so beautiful!

~*~

Serves 4-5
Time: ~1 hour

2 large eggplants
1 tsp sea salt
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 small-ish yellow/green zucchini squash
2 red bell peppers
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped (just a little bit)
2 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

_______

Heat a pan with 1 tbsp vegetable oil over medium-low heat. (Not too hot! We don't want to caramelize!) Don't use any more oil--it doesn't look like much, but we don't want the veggies to get too oily.

Wash, peel, and cut up your eggplant into even-sized pieces. Add them to the pot with salt.

Stir every few minutes, scraping up any bits that have stuck.

At around 15 minutes the eggplant pieces should all have turned brown and the volume should have shrunk. You should see that the outside is softening but should not look hard, browned, or caramelized.

Thinly slice an onion and add it to the pot with minced garlic. Stir, continuing to stir every few minutes to avoid further sticking. Add a little more salt.

After about 20 minutes your onions should be translucent and softened. Wash your peppers and zucchinis, seeding the peppers and discarding the ends of the squash. Cut your zucchini squash into thin half-rounds and your bell peppers into strips.

Add in your rosemary, thyme, and oregano, and stir to mix. Continue stirring every 5 minutes or so and scraping up stuck bits.

After a further 25 minutes, once all the vegetables are soft, your ratatouille should be done! Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Add your chopped parsley.

And serve!

Ta-da!

focaccia, in about 2 seconds

Okay, so not two seconds. But it feels like it.

This isn't so much of a recipe as it is my favorite party trick. 'Cause you put in pizza dough and some stuff, and you get bread. And as someone who has gone to great lengths to make bread (ask my boyfriend about the hoagie roll disaster of 2011--or, more positively, my uncanny success with challah) I can appreciate a quick solution to the yeast-driven woes of those of us who grew up with homemade bread and now find anything else unsatisfactory. (Damn you, parents with breadmakers!)

And it's a pretty solution at that.

~*~

1 ball pizza dough*
~1/4 cup olive oil or more, be generous**
1/2 tbsp coarse sea salt (this is a great place to use a yummy, fancy sea salt)

toppings

cherry tomatoes, sliced lengthwise
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
kalamata olives, sliced lengthwise

other potential toppings

artichoke hearts, finely sliced
caramelized onions
sundried tomatoes (packed in olive oil)
anchovies
anything that won't burn to a crisp

*Different pizza doughs will do different stuff. They have different water and yeast contents. I know that Trader Joes' plain pizza dough has worked for me, but I'm sure others would. The general rule is to make it thinner than you think, to allow room to rise while baking and still be thick and crusty instead of too-fluffy and not foccacia-y. And, of course, keep an eye on it--mine was done at 1 hour but yours may be done earlier or later! Once it is golden brown on top, you should be good to go!

**Use this much olive oil. Don't skimp. Seriously. This is what makes focaccia so delicious and crusty and golden and glorious. Use more than you think you need. You can see in the pictures that mine had it pooling in the holes--this is ideal.

________

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Let your dough come to room temperature.

Spread a thin layer of olive oil in a 9 inch pie pan. Place your dough in the pan and flatten it, pressing it out towards the edges. Flip it a few times so both sides have a thin coating of olive oil.

Using your fingers, press divots into the dough. Use the photo above as a reference. You want to make as many of these as you can without making your dough into one big hole--the surface is supposed to be craggy and uneven.

Press in your toppings at even intervals. Take your 1/4-cup of olive oil and spread it evenly around.

Sprinkle on herbs and salt.

Bake until the top is golden brown. Mine took ~1 hour.

Dip in balsamic and olive oil, or use it to scoop up some soup. Yum!

apple crisp

The kitchen is my favorite place to be at a party. It sounds weird, I know. Most social and normal people like to be in the living room. But generally being in the kitchen entails being near both the food and the drinks--my two favorite things! I'm like a badger or something, pacing around the resources. I usually meet kindred spirits in the kitchen.

And, at the parties I like to be at most of all, there's some cooking going on. And most times I either volunteer to help--or end up cooking for myself since I have lactose issues. Either way, I somehow get roped into things. (Not that I'm complaining--I love it!)

At one particular party, I was doing my usual skulking around the kitchen when the host asked me to make a dessert. And when someone asks slightly-tipsy you to make a dessert in their house (unfamiliar territory) and you have no smartphone (unlimited recipes), you make crisp.

Because crisp is easy. It's flexible, unlike the vast majority of baking, and has the added bonus of being absolutely delicious. You can use...well, just about any fruit in the world. You just...bake it until it's done!

This is the best thing in the world to eat for breakfast if you've got leftovers--and if you're like me and brazenly eat cookies for breakfast most days, this provides you with a socially acceptable alternative.

~*~

Adapted from nowhere in particular--a little of this, a little of that. Crisp wasn't my idea, ok?
Total time: 1 hr 10 minutes

3 apples, peeled, cored, and diced (enough to fill a 9" pie pan--use firm, flavorful apples, not mealy ones)
zest 1 lemon
juice 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar*
1 tbsp flour
pinch nutmeg
1 vanilla bean, seeded**

2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats***
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (if you use salted, omit the salt)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar (brown is preferable, but I used white sugar, replacing a tbsp with a tbsp of maple syrup for that caramel flavor and it turned out great)

*I don't use very much sugar, to let the pleasant tart-sweet flavor of the Opal apples we have here shine, but if you're using particularly sour apples (like Granny Smith), I'd add another spoon or two of sugar to the apple mix or use agave, which is sweeter than sugar. Or, you can dial back the lemon juice. Taste your apples and decide for yourself.

**I use vanilla beans whose seeds I have already used. You can seed your beans and keep them, then use the empty pods to flavor different dishes. (Just don't eat them by accident!) I tuck one into the apple mixture to give it a nice flavor and smell. If you just have a regular one, mix in the pulp and use the bean, or if you're strapped for beans, add a 1/2 tbsp of vanilla extract.

*** Most crisps call for less oatmeal and add flour to the streusel topping, but I find that all the flour doesn't add anything texturally and generally prefer more oatmeal anyway. Let me know what you think if you try it out!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Core, peel, and dice your apples into small cube-like pieces. Lay them out in an even layer in a pie dish spritzed with a little spray canola oil or butter. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, flour, sugar, and nutmeg. Mix. Tuck in your vanilla bean (see note above).

Now make your crumbly topping. Melt butter in microwave (mine's usually done in 45 seconds to 1 minute). Add in oatmeal, salt, and sugar. The mixture may look a little wet at this point, but don't worry--it will dry out and get crunchy in the oven. Spread it over your apples and stick it in the oven.

Bake for about 1 hour--until juices are bubbly and look dark brown, and the top is crunchy. Test to make sure that you can easily put a knife through the apple pieces.

Now hide it from your friends...and enjoy. You could put some ice cream on it, but then you might just die from the awesomeness.