Julia Child's Ratatouille

Last summer I bought a butt load of eggplants.  I chopped them up with my bumper crop of yellow squash and froze 3 bags like this one.  Notice that it says "pg 503" ?

This is page 503:

From this famous book:

I was fortunate enough to live in France for 10 months, 8 of that spent with a French family who adopted me.  The matriarch of the family, Marie-Claude, is a warm, generous, and kind person who is still a close friend.  M-C taught me many of the things I know about cooking, including how to make ratatouille.  Much of what I cook, both in technique and ingredients, comes from her influence.

Ratatouille is made from tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and bell peppers, all late summer harvest items.  It's from the south of France, which is the warm region where these things grow well.  When I bagged up the yellow squash from my yard and the farmers market eggplant last summer, it was an experiment to see if I could recapture that late summer flavor of savory vegetables in the bleak winter months of roots and hard squash.

You can download a copy of the Julia Child recipe here.

I started by cooking the eggplant in oil:

Next I cooked the onions with 3 of my fire-roasted red pepper cubes because fresh local bell peppers do not exist in Washington in January.

Once that was all cooked, I added the garlic.

From there, I added a jar of tomatoes I had canned last summer, returned the eggplant to the pan, and seasoned it.  I could tell that Julia's ratatouille wasn't going to be as good as Marie-Claude's (sorry, Julia).  I added some herbes de Provence and red pepper flakes as well as extra salt and pepper.

I let it simmer, covered by a splatter guard, for about 20 minutes.

My last act was to top the ratatouille with 4 eggs and let them poach in the sauce, covered, for about 5 minutes.

Ratatouille with eggs is the only way I ever had this dish in France, and it's how I prefer it.  The slightly runny yolks add a creaminess to the ratatouille's flavor, as well as contribute protein.

Of course, I had to have some red wine with dinner!

So did I recreate a summer dish in the winter?  The answer is yes and no.  The eggplant was brown and unappealing, I think due to having been frozen and my not having drained it fully.  The yellow squash, however, was still very flavorful and I found myself digging in my bowl for just the squash.  The chickens got the eggplant and gladly ate it.  They don't get much in the way of veggies during the winter.

I still have 2 bags of the ratatouille mix in the freezer.  I'm going to try a recipe from my French Cooking cookbook, which I recently pulled from my library for the mousse au chocolat basque.  I'll let you know when I do.

Ingredient break-down:

LOCAL: All veggies and herbs, eggs, wine

NOT LOCAL: Oil, salt, pepper

Sauteed parsnips with rosemary honey

I'd been meaning to drive to Tenino, where my friend Lisa has her Lucky Pig Farm, so that I could pick up some things before Christmas.  I never made it but, luckily for me, she drives through Tacoma weekly and we were able to connect. 

There's always a voice in the back of my head whenever I'm meeting someone in a parking lot to buy a non-commercial, locally raised product like meat or honey.  That voice says, "So, ya got da stuff?"  Cracks me up.

Lisa brought me a fresh chicken.  I roasted that guy up with some thyme from my yard, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

While the chicken was roasting, I made these parsnips.  I had dug them out of my garden a while back, pleasantly surprised at how big they'd gotten.  Parsnips are easily one of my favorite winter vegetable.  I love the sweetness they develop after being cooked.

SAUTEED PARSNIPS WITH ROSEMARY HONEY
adapted very slightly from epicurious.com

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound large parsnips, peeled, halved lengthwise, cored, cut into sticks
Coarse kosher salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon rosemary-infused honey

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add parsnips.  Sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and pepper. Sauté until parsnips are beginning to brown at edges, about 12 minutes.

Add butter, rosemary, and honey to parsnips. Toss over medium heat until heated through and vegetables are glazed, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with more salt and pepper, if desired.

I finished off the meal with some aspargus from my pantry and voila!  A 100% local meal.

On a side note, I'm in awe of how big my kitchen looks when the counters are clear... wow.

Dark Days Frittata

As you may know, hubbie and I keep 9 hens on our wee urban lot in our city of 200,00 inhabitants.  These girls provide us with an abundance of eggs... unless they're molting.  Then they don't lay at all.

Of our nine hens, six are "production" birds, which typically lay 4-6 eggs/week all year-round.  The other three are ornamentals and lay from 2-4/week starting in about April or May and going until October or so.  Lately only Gwen and Nugget have been laying - all the girls had really hard molts this fall - but it's still enough to provide our household of two with enough eggs for eating and baking. 

And these eggs are the perfect Dark Days Challenge food.

Here's a frittata that I made.  I guess it's technically a frittata because there is no bread in it, which would make it a strata, nor does it have a crust, which would make it a quiche.

Dark Days Frittata

I started by dicing and cooking some red potatoes from our garden.

I cooked them up in my favorite skillet.

Then I added some chopped kale and garlic.

I decided that I was going for kind of a southwest-y flavor, so grabbed one of my roasted red pepper ice cubes from the freezer.

... popped it into the microwave for 30 seconds...

... then beat it with about six eggs, some salt, and pepper.  Next time I'll use 2-3 of the cubes because the flavor got lost amongst the other things.

I poured the eggs over the potato mixture, then topped with some cheese.  I think this is more of the queso fresco I've had for a while.

Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes and voila!  I topped it with some cilantro that had been languishing in my fridge.  The cilantro and cheese were the only non-local ingredients. 

Ingredient break-down:

Local: eggs, potato, red peppers, garlic

Not local: salt, pepper, cilantro, cheese

Guest post - Pasta with kale

Meet Jennifer.  She and I went to high school together, where I sat behind her in algebra class.  It took me most of that semester to realize that our teacher was, in fact, her dad.  Jennifer and I reconnected last summer on facebook when our classmates were planning an 18-year reunion.  (I know... weird.)

As we've gotten to know each other again via facebook Jennifer and I have discovered that we have a lot in common.  I asked Jennifer if she'd be interested in doing a guest post on cooking with local food in Bellingham.  Oh happy day, she agreed!  Jennifer is an avid user of her pressure cooker, something I've yet to really get into, so help me persuade her to return with a future post about pressure cooking, ok?

Jennifer lives in Bellingham with her handsome husband and their two young boys.  Bellingham is home to 2 farmers markets, Western Washington University, and is located a stone's throw from the San Juan Islands and  Canada. 

Without futher ado, I'll turn my blog over to Jen for today.

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One of the things I love to make in the fall and winter months here in Bellingham is pasta with kale. I first saw Lydia Bastianich cook this on her show called “Lidia’s Italy.” It’s simple, easy, and takes very little equipment or fancy foods.

The best part however, is the fact that you can substitute any bitter green veggie for the kale. Some good substitutes that I’ve used in place of kale are swiss chard, arugula, beet greens, collard greens, and mustard greens. These greens on their own are usually dismissed by many as tasting awful. But cooked in this manner they are delish, light and healthy. Bitter greens are usually available all winter long from local farmers and they’ll even grow up through the snow.

All photos by guest blogger Jennifer, except as noted

I purchased my kale from the Rabbit Fields Farm stand at the Bellingham Farmer’s Market. It’s open year round now due to the building of the covered market area. Most of the building is made from recycled building material and the internal structure utilized refurbished beams from an old county bridge.

On top of the market structure is a weathervane in the shape of a beet that was made by a local artist. Welcome to Bellingham!

Photo from http://www.bellinghamfarmers.org

For a nice break from meat during the week and a tasty way to serve up kale, here’s how to make Pasta with Kale.

Ingredients:

16 oz. dried pasta (I prefer linguine)

Grated parmesan

1 garlic clove

1 bunch of kale

Favorite bottle of white wine (this is optional and veggie/chicken stock/or even water can be used instead)

Red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Instructions:
First, thinly slice a clove of garlic and sauté in small amount of olive oil. Scoop out the garlic when it begins to turn brown and reserve.

Then chop up your kale into small bits and place into the garlic infused oil. Get ready: iy will snap, crackle, and pop because the kale contains so much water, which reacts with the oil.

Toss the kale in the oil, cover quickly, and cook down for a few minutes.

Once things have settled down under the lid of your pan, add a pinch of red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper.

Toss again and then add a bit of wine. I use about ¼ cup. Cook off the alcohol in the wine and cook the kale until is it tender. Add the reserved garlic back to this mixture at this time.

While the kale is cooking heat up a gigantic pot of boiling water with a small handful of salt. Yes, I said handful.  In Italy, the farther south you go the saltier the pasta water gets, so that by the time you’re in Sicily the pasta water is as salty as the Mediterranean. One small handful and you’re about mid-Italy.

I cannot emphasize enough, but make sure this pot of boiling water is BIG.  If your noodles have ever stuck together it’s because you didn’t leave enough “swimming room” for the pasta.

Once your pasta is cooked scoop it out of the water and add it to the hot, cooked kale. Toss the pasta, garlic and kale mixture together in the pan. Add a little extra pasta water if the pasta and kale are having difficulty mixing together.

Turn off the heat in the pan and sprinkle a generous amount of parmesan cheese. Serve it up in bowls and enjoy.

The whole meal takes just 20 minutes, so it’s a really good dish to make when you don’t have a whole lot of time.  Have fun!

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Leave a nice note for Jennifer if you want her to write another guest post sometime.

Celery Root Soup

The week before Thanksgiving there was a one-time-only winter opening of the Tacoma Farmers Market.  It was held in a different location and during different hours, but featured many of the regular vendors from the summer market.  That day I worked through lunch to leave work early and braved the cold, wet storm that was forecast.  The weather was nasty and I felt terrible for the vendors, many of whom greeted me from behind chattering teeth. 

My buddy, Dave from Blue Rose Dairy, was there but I didn't buy any more of his offerings.  I have enough already.  He did tell me that their dairy hopes to start offering aged cheese in a couple of years.  Yippee!!  He told me about some of their experiments, half of which have gone bad.  It's an expensive proposition.

What I did buy was as much fresh produce as I thought we could eat, not knowing when I'd get another chance to buy such goodies.  My bag held fresh chard, 2 pretty yellow squash, fava beans, fennel, and celery root.  I've probably forgotten something else that was in there.

Have you ever bought a celery root?  It's ugly and intimidating.  I happen to love nearly every root vegetable, except beets, making this a safe bet for me.

Photo from Gourmet.com

Since my husband can be a picky eater I was a little apprehensive about how to use this fugly veggie.  I finally decided, since it was a dark and stormy night, that soup was on the docket.  I settled upon David Lebowitz' soup in part because I had most of the ingredients.  But mostly I just wanted to live vicariously through him because he lives in Paris and, well... I don't.

As for the hubbie, he approved of this recipe!  He actually had seconds and ate more soup the next day. 

Note that as made, this is not a vegetarian meal.  By trading the chicken stock for vegetable stock and omitting and animal-derived but delicious garnishes, this could easily be made into a vegan meal.

Celery Root Soup, adapted from David Lebowitz's blog

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped (you can also use leeks)
Salt (I used some truffle sea salt I've had for a while)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large celery root (about 3-pounds, 1.5kg), peeled and cubed
1 tart apple such as a Granny Smith, peeled and cubed
1 quart chicken stock (use vegetable stock to make this vegetarian)
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly-ground pepper
Cream is optional
Bacon is also optional

1. In a large pot, melt the butter with the olive oil.

2. Add the onion and cook for about five minutes, stirring frequently. Add the garlic cloves and season with salt, and continue to cook until the onions and garlic are soft and translucent. If the pot begins to brown too much on the bottom as they cook, add another pat of butter or pour of olive oil.

3. Add the celery root, apple, and stock. (Or use all water.) Bring to a boil, then reduce to a strong simmer. Cook, with the lid to the pot ajar on top, until the celery root pieces are soft and easily pierced with a paring knife, 30-45 minutes.

4. While the celery root is cooking, cut the bacon into small pieces and brown in a skillet.  Set aside and try not to nibble.

5. Add pepper then purée using an immersion blender, or let the soup cool to room temperature and whiz in a blender until smooth. Taste, and season with additional salt and pepper if desired. If the soup is too thick, it can be thinned with water or stock.  I used a spot of cream in mine.

6. Reheat soup, top some bacon bits (optional but HIGHLY recommended!), and serve with a crusty bread.  Some chives would be great if you had them.

Ingredient break-down...

LOCAL:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Celery root
• Apple
• Chicken stock - homemade & canned by me with chicken from Lucky Pig Farm
• Butter & Cream - from Smith Brothers Farms
• Bacon - pork belly from Lucky Pig Farm and smoked by yours truly with hickory wood from Gageby Farm

NOT LOCAL:

• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper