Madison Avenue ~ Who The Hell Are You?
Queen ~ I Want It All
The Eagles ~ The Last Resort
Little Angels ~ Boneyard
Dana Glover ~ Sing To Me
Buckcherry ~ All Of Me
Thunder ~ Love Walked In
Tina Dico ~ Fuel
Skin ~ Come Together
Chris Cornell ~ Doesn't Remind Me
Peggy Lee ~ Something
Joan Jett ~ Let Me Go
Caro Emerald ~ I Belong To You
Auf De Maur ~ Would If I Could
Firstly can I just say....2 days to my sisters wedding and 3 days to our holiday in Cornwall. Excited much? lol And all is calm and I am now fully recovered from the Hen dinner party...Passionfruit Margaritas and Long Island Iced Teas...woo! lol A great night was had by all and my sister even got a dance with a salsa teacher who spun her around and left her feeling a little giddy.
Today has been a good day...despite the obvious feeling dreadful I have managed to keep myself together. My body hurts in more ways than I ever thought possible and then I woke up with a migraine too...but I made myself get my day started after enjoying listening to a couple of Podcast Plays whilst waiting for my meds to take effect. Slowly and surely I made it downstairs into my kitchen, pulled together all the ingredients for today's recipe and sat at my kitchen counter and found peace in slicing the veggies. I was soon joined by my Mum and brother G and then I placed my finished dish into the oven and we sat and had a good catch up with the beautiful smell of baking vegetables drifting around us. After they left the post arrived and with it brought my new cookbook and new kitchen toy. Donna Kleins ~ The Chinese Vegan Kitchen and a veggie spiralizer. So expect many Chinese style dishes over the coming weeks..lol.
I am a huge fan of cartoons and really enjoyed Ratatouille...and it's a favourite with the little ones too. I have made varying kinds of ratatouille over the years..one of my favourites being a beany based one that is served with pancakes. It makes for an attractive dinner party dish and I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't enjoy stuffing their pancakes with the veggies. However, towards the end of Ratatouille the movie, they have to impress a food critic and cook for him a ratatouille dish that reminds him of his mothers cooking. They bring to the table a sliced ratatouille dish which I have to admit a style I had never seen before. And since that first viewing of the movie I have wanted to try this recipe for myself. I found a recipe quite some time ago and filed it because I wasn't well enough for kitchen duties at the time. But this last weekend I was having a slow stroll around our Indian and Continental Store in the city and found the perfect long thin shaped aubergines/eggplants and I knew the time was right. So I picked up some uniform sized courgettes/zucchini and some long slender red peppers.
I could see why some people would find making this dish time consuming but for me it was very Zen like. Making the sauce in the baking dish and then slicing the veggies into uniform shapes and then laying them out to fill the dish. I enjoyed making this dish very much and enjoyed the attention to detail that it required but I truly feel that even on a day where I was pushed for time I would still enjoying putting it together. And it is worth it....it is rich in flavours but light on the stomach and the veggies are infused with the sauce they are baked on and they are succulent when bitten in to. It was everything I was hoping it would be..and then some. And it can be eaten alone and be satisfying or on the side of a pasta, jacket potato or rice dish. It is a delight...
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| Layered Ratatouille |
Layered Ratatouille Serves 4
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 cup of tomato passata
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 thin aubergine/eggplant, thinly sliced
1 thin courgette/zucchini, thinly sliced
1 long thin red pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp dried thyme
salt to season
plenty of freshly cracked black pepper
Preheat the oven to 375'F/190'C/GM 5 and get a 10" in length baking dish ready to one side.
Pour the tomato passata into the baking dish and rotate the dish to ensure the base is covered. Then sprinkle over the onion followed by the garlic. Then sprinkle the oregano and salt over, stir around, then add 1 tbsp of the oil and liberally grate the pepper over the mix. Stir well to combine and then smooth out once again.
Then take slices of courgettes, aubergine then pepper and start at the outside edge and work around and then repeat in the centre and tuck in the final slices. There will be slices left over that you could store in a container and then grill to go in a sandwich later.
Rub the dried thyme between your fingers, over the veggies and then drizzle over with the remaining oil. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside the baking dish and then press down onto the veggies. This will stop the veggies browning and ensure an even baking of the slices. You do want the sauce to bubble up from under the veggies. Bake for 45-55 minutes..mine was perfect at the 45 minute stage. Serve...
Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope that your Wednesday has been a happy one...
~Red~
Thanks to whomever created this recipe but once again it was posted by Anon.
