This Roasted Ratatouille is something we make all year round. It’s easy, delicious, and healthy. Enjoy this little cooking video Gigi and I made. You can read about and print the recipe here.
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A BIRTHDAY DINNER… Gigi’s birthday was two weeks ago, although it seems like it was just last week. Now that she’s three years old she is sleeping without Pull-Ups during naps, being a stellar big sister to Baby Lu, and she started drawing circle people. I love her crazy little circle people… you know the ones: circle, four (or sometimes “eleventeen”) lines representing limbs, some eyes, maybe an eyebrow. She’s also been helping me cook and taking more of a part in menu planning, which is really fun. For her birthday dinner I decided to let her browse through some of my cookbooks and pick whatever she wanted for dinner. She looked through My Father’s Daughter and Tyler’s Ultimate which both have lovely pictures for her to look at. She looked and looked, taking forever to choose in the way only a toddler can make a single decision last forever. Finally she looked up from the books, abandoning them, and said, “I want Ratatouille and that Garlic Bread!” She was referring to my “World-Famous” Garlic Bread and my version of Ratatouille, which is roasted rather than cooked on the stovetop. We have been watching Ratatouille a lot and making it fairly often around here lately. It’s perfect to make during a lazy Sunday, and we use the leftovers for lunches for a couple of days. My favorite way to serve it is to take some chewy, springy bread, drizzled with fruity olive oil, pop it under the broiler for a few minutes until it’s golden and crisp, smear the warm bread with a bit of tart goat cheese and top it with the warm, or room temperature Ratatouille and some freshly torn basil. G prefers hers served alongside some pasta that’s been tossed with a bit of pasta water and goat cheese until the goat cheese goats the pasta like an alfredo sauce. For her birthday we chose Linguini pasta since the main characters name in Ratatouille is Linguini. As soon as Kyle got home from work on New Year’s Eve, G and I hopped in the car and headed to the store. I let her bring her “copping shop”, also known as a shopping cart to those of us with more developed language skills, that she had been given by her Grandparents for Christmas.* I don’t recommend brining your child, who’s high on birthday fumes and wearing a tiara and sash, to the grocery store with their own cart. I’m pretty sure she thought she was on SuperMarket Sweep. Somehow we made it through our shopping trip and got home without either of us getting arrested, or getting stitches, which at times felt like real possibilities. Once we were home G cozied up on the couch to watch Ratatouille, and I set about making dinner. I roast the vegetables in “layers”, letting each one cook and caramelize before adding the next one so it takes a little while. While it roasted Kyle and I let G open a couple of gifts, sipped our glasses of wine and watched Ratatouille with her. I hope that, as she continues to grow up, she remembers choosing menu items, helping to cook, and that dinnertime was something special in her house… it’s something special to me. ROASTED RATATOUILLE Ingredients. Directions. In a small bowl, toss the onion pieces with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Remove the eggplant and zucchini from the oven and add the onions, bay leaf, thyme and rosemary to the roasting pan, tossing the vegetables together gently with the herbs and return to the oven for 30 minutes. Toss together the tomatoes, garlic, anchovy filet or paste, tomato paste, a bit of olive oil, red pepper flakes, a pinch of salt and some pepper together in a bowl. Remove the vegetables from the oven, add the tomatoes, garlic, etc. to the roasting pan, toss gently and return to the often for another 30-45 minutes, until the tomatoes have softened and the ratatouille is nice and caramelized. Remove from the oven and allow it to rest on the baking sheet for about 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaf and thyme stems. Serve with bread that’s been drizzled with a bit of olive oil, toasted under the broiler and smeared with goat cheese. Alternatively, prepare some pasta, reserve a bit of the pasta water, and toss the pasta, a couple tablespoons of pasta water at a time, and a few ounces of goat cheese all together until the cheese melts and sticks to the pasta. Top the toast or pasta with the ratatouille, sprinkle with a bit of roughly torn basil and dig in. *This Melissa & Doug Metal Shopping cart was a serious upgrade from her little plastic one. It’s awesome and she uses it all the time. It’s a quality kids’ toy, and brilliantly, it has breaks built in so if your child climbs in (or more likely shoves there baby sister into it) it won’t move. G loves to use it when it’s clean up time, she loads all her toys in it and carts them where they need to go. It helps make pick up time less of a battle. PRINTABLE RECIPE. BALANCE, RIGHT? … What a difference a week makes. For the last week I have been eating protein packed breakfasts (quinoa with sautéed spinach, an egg, and a couple slices of bacon), and huge salads for lunch with chicken, black beans, or another great protein source. We also been having fabulous, giant salads for dinner. All of the above recipes are adaptions from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, It’s All Good. I’ve also been taking my prenatal vitamins, increased my calcium and vitamin D intake. I feel like a million bucks. I really haven’t been a breakfast eater since Gigi was born. Up until last week, my usual breakfast consisted of two mugs full of coffee and warmed milk, sweetened with a little honey and a splash of vanilla extract, and the occasional piece of toast or maybe a banana. This week was definitely hard in that I had to fight my normal habit of sitting down at my computer with coffee in hand. Instead I spent most of my “free time” making large breakfasts for myself. As for lunch, I’m ashamed to admit that my regular lunch was usually pretty meager; leftovers if we had them, a scrambled egg and toast, or some yogurt… I would usually eat something once the girls were down for their afternoon naps, sometime between one and two, while, you guessed it, working! But this week I planned large salads for dinner, portioning them out in the evening and putting enough in the fridge for Kyle to take for work, and for me and Gigi to have for our lunch. Three large meals a day, plus a small snack around four and, I’m telling you, I feel incredible! The irony is that I’ve actually accomplished at least as much work as I normally do in a week, if not more than usual. Plus I’ve even kept the house cozy and tidy and I’ve gotten the girls and myself dressed every day before noon. I kind of feel like superwoman. Tonight I’m making my very favorite salad, this might actually be my favorite salad, ever. I first started making it when Gwyneth Paltrow shared it on her website three years ago and it’s been in regular rotation around here ever since. We make it least twice a month. I always double the recipe so we can have it two nights in a row, or for dinner one night, plus a few lunches. My favorite way to serve it is with fried tofu that’s been lightly coated in corn starch, it’s light, crispy and the coating absorbs the fabulous Thai dressing… the dressing is so, so good. I’m half considering doing a cleanse in which I only drink this dressing for three days (just kidding, but it’s really delicious). CHOPPED VIETNAMESE SALAD WITH FRIED TOFU Salad Ingredients. Dressing Ingredients. Tofu Ingredients. Tofu Directions. Directions. To assemble the salad, simply toss the bok choy, cabbage, carrot, cucumber, fresh herbs all together with the lots of the dressing (I usually use it all), use tongs to transfer it to plates. Top with the peanuts and thai red chili’s. Place a few cubes of the fried tofu on top of each of the salads. *If you’re serving this to your kids, you might hold off adding the thai red chili until serving time. That way you can add it to your salad but not theirs…. although, that being said, we didn’t put the chili’s on Gigi’s last night and she picked them all off of our salads and ate them. The original dressing recipe also calls for a bit of hot sesame oil, which I usually omit, and I use more chili than her recipe. If you are doubling this recipe for leftovers, I recommend keeping the ingredients compartmentalized as follows: the salad greens can be stored together, the carrot and cucumber together, the thai chili on it’s own, the peanuts on their own, and the herbs on their own. It’s really easy to toss it all together when you’re ready, along with the dressing, and keeps things from getting wilted and soggy. I would definitely double the dressing recipe if you’re going to double the salad recipe. A final, important note about serving this salad as leftovers… Even if you’re only making lunch for yourself, I highly recommend serving it alongside a plate of my Crisp Oven French Fries. It’s about balance, right? PRINTABLE RECIPE. A few weeks ago, my sweet friend headed into the doctor to find out the gender of her third baby. She already has a boy and a girl, and she headed to the appointment thinking she was going to be welcoming another son to their family. I had told her that if she wanted me to, I’d be happy to whip her up a gender reveal cake so she and her husband could cut into it with their to older kids and share the whole experience with them. While she was at her appointment, Gigi and I prepped all the ingredients for the cake. I’d decided to adapt Jennfier Shea’s recipe for Pink Champagne cupcakes from her fabulous book called Trophy Cupcakes and Parties! and make it into a layer cake. We set out the blue and red food coloring and waited… She anxiously delivered the sealed envelope into my hands as she drove home from the ultrasound. The second she walked out the door I tore open the envelope and saw the ultrasound image that said, “IT’S A GIRL!” I have to admit, I teared up. There was something really amazing about being the first person (other than the ultrasound tech) to know that they were going to have another beautiful daughter in their family. Gigi and I whipped up this cake and topped it with chocolate buttercream frosting. It turned out wonderfully! HAPPY NEW YEAR… Last week was kind of rotten around here with colds, grumpiness, and disorganization. But somehow we were able to get things in working order this weekend. Everyone is healthy, the house is tidy, and we had a wonderful tiny birthday celebration for Gigi. I even got to read in bed for a good hour yesterday afternoon! So, I’m having a “first day of the New Year” do-over. As far as I’m concerned today is the start of my new year… It’s a New Year and I couldn’t be happier. This year was amazing and challenging. The ups and downs this year felt more extreme than usual… we welcomed Lulu to our family and what a joy she is! We had so many wonderful experiences with our friends and family. This year was also a very difficult one. My best friend, who I’m blessed to have as my next door neighbor, was diagnosed with breast cancer in August. I didn’t talk about it at all here because it wasn’t my experience to talk about. I’m mentioning it now because I learned from it that we should be doing self-breast exams even if you’re breastfeeding and even if you’re in your early 30’s. That’s maybe my most important resolution for the New Year. I learned more than just that from her, I was so impressed with her sense of humor, her positivity, her strength, her perspective. I hope to take some of her traits with me into this year. Aside from doing monthly self-breast exams, my main goals for this coming year are to focus on simplicity and self-care. Together Kyle and I are reassessing everything, holding up household items and asking one another, “Do we still use this enough to justify keeping it around?”, as well as taking a broader look at our belongings and lifestyle, “Could we work as a one car family?” We’ve also been talking a lot about what we need as individuals in order to feel less depleted and drained. For both of us that means we need exercise, time to work on our creative projects, a clean house, and a healthy diet. Sometimes meeting these simple needs can seem really challenging but we are trying not to overthink it. As we continue to simplify our work lives, our home environment, and our schedules things will all fall into place. An urgent focus for me is to get my foot to heal. My foot has been injured since Lulu was born. After hobbling and limping around for the past 7 months, I finally got a complete diagnosis; stress fractures, sprained ligaments, and tendonitis! It sounds intense, and it kind of is, but it’s nothing degenerative and nothing that requires surgery so I actually feel relieved. Doctor’s orders were to rest (which is difficult given that I’m alone with two busy babes all day) and to boost my body’s ability to heal by increasing my calcium and protein intake (which I can totally do)! I think the lesson hidden in the injury is a reminder that if I don’t take care of myself, and even learn to put my needs first sometimes, or I won’t be able to be at my best for anyone else. That is a challenge for me, but something that I (obviously) need to work on this year. So with a fridge full of farm fresh eggs, vegetables, chicken, yogurt, etc. a pantry loaded with quinoa and whole wheat flour, and a new calcium supplement and order of prenatal vitamins on the way, a clean house, and a growing mountain of things heading to the Goodwill center, I feel ready to take on the New Year. One of my go to, easy, protein packed meals is to make a big batch of Chicken Salad early in the week. That way, even on my busiest, most frazzled days, I have something on hand that nourishes me. I often stuff it into pitas, make sandwiches with it, or put a large scoop of it on top of salad greens… and I’ve been known to simply eat it straight from the bowl when the day seems pinched into teeny tiny moments to take care of myself. SIMPLE CHICKEN SALAD Ingredients. Directions. Pile the chicken salad into pitas or onto your favorite sandwich bread, or scoop it on top of some crisp romaine for a great salad. PRINTABLE RECIPE. |
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