Ratatouille

After a full two weeks or so of eating crappy crap due to my oven being smokey, this past weekend I figured I'd make something tasty and healthy for dinner. I made Ratatouille once over the summer, but seeing as I was exhausted after a weekend of drinking and pumpkin picking (Not at the same time, mind you), I decided to be lazy and let my trusty crock pot do my work for me.

It also didn't hurt that I was really in the mood to watch the movie "Ratatouille". Couldn't tell you why for the life of me.

Ratatouille

Recipe Source: One of the crock pot cookbooks I stole borrowed from my parents, so no link this time, kids!
Some Recommended Kitchen Music: End Creditouille, Michael Giacchino (Yes, I am in fact that predictable)

Ingredients: Quick note - I was a moron and chopped up almost everything before I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the ingredients I used, so please enjoy this tasteful artist's rendition.

1 large eggplant (1.5 lbs), cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt
1 medium-size yellow onion, coarsely chopped
3 large bell peppers (any color, really), seeded and cut into big squares)
10 plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or one 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained (I've found that canned stewed tomatoes work just as well too)
2 to 3 cloves of garlic, to your taste, minced
1/2 cup olive oil
5 zucchini or summer squash, ends trimmed, and cut into thick rounds
1 to 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil, to your taste
As much freshly ground black pepper as you damn well please

The Cookin':

First things first, you're supposed to throw your diced eggplant into a colander and coat it with salt, and leave it for an hour, which is supposed to drain the moisture out of the eggplant. I guess I didn't put enough salt on it (I only used about a tablespoon or two), but I didn't really find it all that essential in the end.

This salt/eggplant combo also fucking reeks, so unless you want your place smelling like burnt kitty litter for an hour, I'd just skip this entirely.

Now dump in your eggplant, onion, bell peppers, tomatoes, and garlic in the slow cooker. Pour in the olive oil and toss the veggies to get 'em coated.

Oh my. Cook it on high for 1 to 1.5 hours, or on low for 2 to 3 hours. You want to do it on low. Trust me.

Once that timer hits zero, you're gonna want to toss in your zucchini and squash.

CHRIST, that's a lot of veggies. I almost ran out of room in my pot at this point. Now you want to cook it on low for another two hours.

I bet right now you're wondering, "Did the smell of all these veggies cooking for so long make his apartment smell awesome?" Well let me answer that for you...

Duh.


Ok, during the last hour, you're going to want to toss the basil, salt, and pepper. I didn't put in a lot of basil and salt, but I loooove me some pepper, so I threw in lots and lots and lots.

During the last hour, I fried up a few chicken breasts on my stove and chopped up a baguette for some sides, but you can really have anything you want with ratatouille. Once the timer hits zero again, you're done!

Good gawd. Just look at how much liquid oozed out of all this food. It's practically drowning in veggie broth, but that's not a bad thing. Time to serve up this behemoth!

Yeah, I'm a predictable doofus. WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?

Oh right, the food. It was delicious! The veggies look like they're just sauteed and mushy in the pictures, but they held their shapes remarkably well, and I had two more helpings of just the ratatouille after this first plate. A tasty, healthy, and remarkably easy meal to make on these cool fall afternoons. Oh, and in case you're wondering what the white chunks are, I decided to sprinkle some feta cheese on top at the last minute, which made a good dish even better. Y'all can season it with whatever you want, though.

Rating: 9/10

Sweet & Spicy Thai Marinated Chicken

Every day this past summer, I'd wake up and ask myself "Will this be the day I wake up on a rainy and gloomy morning to spend my day in a windowless building and waste most of my classtime on crosswords and Gchat?" The answer was consistently no. But now that school is back, the return of Pittsburgh's annual ice age was inevitable. This past week, the clouds and rain returned. My time has come.

With Pittsburgh's generally hateful weather returning, I knew I needed something spicy to warm me up a little. Thanks to the magic of the internets, I founds something that sounded glorrrrious.

Sweet and Spicy Thai Marinated Chicken

Recipe Link: Crepes of Wrath (In case you couldn't tell, I really like this site's recipes)
Recommended Cooking Music: You! Me! Dancing!, Los Campesinos

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts, pounded to an even thickness
For the marinade:
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons finely minced lemongrass, fresh or frozen (Shockingly enough, I couldn't find this at Giant Eagle, so I figured Lemon Peel would good enough. Right?)
3 1/2 tablespoons coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (I just didn't bother and used a tablespoon of black pepper. That's how I roll)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
3/4 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon fish sauce (Which sounds like it's barely a step above crab juice)
3 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar

The Cookin':
Let's start off with the marinade. Dump all of your marinade ingredients into a bowl.

Good GOD coconut milk is disgusting. Yeech. Anyway, stir it all around 'til there aren't any clumps of brown sugar left in there.

Will... not... make... poop... joke... Now that the lovely brown paste is all done, set it aside and get your chicken out.

Now, the recipe calls for the chicken to be pounded to an even width. However, me having a teeny-tiny kitchen, I don't have a mallet lying around. I clearly needed something sitting in my apartment that was big, heavy, and useless...

FINALLY, my Civ Pro casebook becomes useful! Keep fucking pounding that chicken until your neighbors complain about the noise.

Good enough. Now marinate it for as little as half an hour, or as long as UNTIL THE END OF TIME. Ok, maybe just overnight, but it feels like a long time. Shut up.

I waited a for a few hours before my stomach started growling. My choices now were to either grill it on my massive, annoying indoor "grill" for a few minutes, or bake it in my oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes. After my Zucchini Lasagna disaster, I spent a few hours last week cleaning out my oven. Or so I thought.

After a few minutes of my oven preheating...

SMOKE ALAAAAAARM. Cue me once again furiously rushing around my apartment trying to flush the smoke out the windows with my comforter because I'm too stupid to own a fan. Upon realizing I'd have to use the behemoth grill, which I hate for a number of reasons, I felt like this poor bastard.

This is how much I hate using and cleaning it. Just look at this monster.

The damn thing takes up half my counter! I have to throw my poor drying rack in the sink just to make room. Throw the chicken on the grill 'til it's all nice and golden brown, then serve with the salad of your choice. I just used some prepackaged Giant Eagle stuff, but you overachievers out there can go make a real salad with fruit and nuts and dressing and stuff.

Upon first bite, hoooooly lemon-y taste, Batman. I'm starting to believe that lemon peel ain't the same as lemongrass. Granted, it had a lovely, spicy aftertaste, and the veggies did a nice job of counteracting the lemon, but man...

Note: A lesser man than myself might make a lemonparty joke here. I'm not going to do so, but feel free to make your own, you rubes.

Overall, great spice, but too much lemon peel. If I were to make this again, I'd cut back on the lemon peel, or actually go to Whole Foods or Trader Joes and try to hunt down some actual lemongrass. I guess now I'll go... read. Dammit, law school.

Rating: 6.5/10