Taptaptap⦠Is anybody still out there? I know, I know, Iām a sorry excuse for a blogger.
So life is pretty good around here, if extremely busyāHarryās 7 1/2 months old and heās become quite a pistol. We lucked out and got one of those happy babies you hear about but rarely see. Heās sitting up and eating solids (favorite food: mango!) and babbling and laughing and learning new tricks every single day, and between him and my work I just donāt have the time to blog. By way of apology, hereās a video of the boyāa food-related clip of him eating his first biscuit, a British invention called a Farleyās Ruskā¦
(I discovered later the rusk has added sugar in it, so he wonāt be having another for a whileābut that might explain why he was so fond of it!)
Even though Iām not blogging, I am cookingāthe slow cooker my mom gave me when Harry was born is my new best friend. When she first offered it to me I said no thanksāgiving birth didnāt ease my food snobbery, apparentlyābut pretty soon I realized that a slow-cooker meal is better than no meal at all. Harryās morning nap is by far the most reliable, and itās so lovely to just toss some stuff in the pot, turn it on, and know that weāll have a healthy, fresh dinner waiting for us when Iām totally beat at the end of the day. Lots of stuff out of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook. The ratatouille is the best weāve hadāI make that a couple times a month. And the brisket (the old-time recipe, with chili sauce & French onion soup mix), and the pot roast⦠So far chicken has been less successful (it overcooks every time), but itās saved my life, that electronic object Iād scorned.
Some non-Harry stuff, a couple of press sightings:
Iāve got a piece called The Skinny on Eggs up on WeightWatchers.com.
And in the April Natural Health magazine, Iāve got a feature called Special Delivery, about pain relief techniques for unmedicated childbirth (which I did NOT do, in case youāre curiousāI never wouldāve made it without my epidural).
As a further apology, hereās the recipe for slow-cooker ratatouille, adapted from Not Your Motherās:
Slow-Cooker Ratatouille
Adapted from Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook
Serves 4-6
1 large eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 medium-to-large red bell peppers, seeded and cut into big squares
1 14.5-ounce can of diced plum tomatoes, drained (Iāve used both the fire-roasted canned kind, and most of a package of Pomi chopped tomatoes, and both work great)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
3-5 zucchini, ends trimmed, cut into thick rounds
A handful of fresh herbs (recipe calls for basil but I almost never have that around in the winter, so Iāve used rosemary, thyme, and even parsley)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Combine the eggplant, onion, bell peppers, tomatoes, and garlic in the slow cooker (mine is 5-quart oval). Pour the olive oil over and toss to coat. Cover and cook on high 1 hour.
Add zucchini, cover, and cook another hour on high.
Add herbs, salt & pepper, and cook on high another half-hour to an hour.
Done!
(The recipe says you can do this on low for 2-3 hours before adding the zuke, then another 2-2 1/2āadding the herbs during the last hourābut mine came out too wet that way. My solution was to add orzo & leave it bubbling on high for 20 minutes, which created a wonderful one-pot mealā¦)
Done!(The recipe says you can do this on low for 2-3 hours before adding the zuke, then another 2-2 1/2āadding the herbs during the last hourābut mine came out too wet that way
Hi Debbie – I notice you don't mention salting out the eggplant…do you not need to with this recipe?
Hi Josie, thanks for writing. Nope, no need to salt. Eggplant has had most of the bitterness bred out of it these days, so unless you're frying (and want to change the texture to make it less sponge-like) you almost never need to salt it anymore! Discovered that tidbit while researching an article on eggplant š
Awesome! Thanks! Anything to save work and time…