Ratatouille!

Ratatouille (Joy, p. 274) is a French peasant dish made with cubes of eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, onion, red peppers and herbs. In short, just about everything ready in my garden right now. The veggies are sauteed in a dutch oven or heavy pan in olive oil and then left to simmer with a bay leaf and thyme. A sprinkling of fresh chopped basil finished the ratatouille. The result was a hearty vegetarian dish, the olive oil laden eggplants meaty enough for my meat-loving husband.

East to West SH #20 Fruit Buckle

Just returned to Whidbey Island from Eastern Washington via SH #20. After spending the night in cowboy country, Omak, Wa. came home over the North Cascades Highway. Stopped at a fruit stand just outside of Okanagon and bought organic peaches and nectarines. Once we hit the west side, took a short detour through Bow-Edison, Wa to pick up some blueberries at a farm we have been going to for years. Most of the blueberries went into the freezer to be carefully portioned out over the long winter months.

Wanted to make something to eat now, but not the usual. Looking through the index of Joy of Cooking a recipe for Blueberry and Peach Buckle (pg 691) leaped out. Great, I could use both of my fruits in one dessert. Reading the intro, I learned that a buckle is a cake with fruit folded into the batter before baking and finished with a streusel topping.

The buckle reminded me of a coffee cake with the cake and topping overshadowing the fruit. That was a little disappointing as I really wanted more of a fruit taste, especially since I had such nice fresh fruit, I would make this again if I had canned fruit or some fruit that I wanted to use up. We still had no trouble eating the entire cake.

If you want to know how this type of cake got the name "buckle", you will have to read page 690 in the Joy cookbook.

Stick to Grandma Peggy's oatmeal cookies

Joy's oatmeal raisin cookies (p. 767) stink. The dry texture sent us hurtling toward the fridge for some milk. I experimented with different baking times, even under baking one batch and the result wasn't much better. The perfect oatmeal raisin cookie ought to be chewy and moist, the kind of cookie you'd pack on a long hike for a slightly spicy, oatey, satisfying snack. Even Grandpa Rich, famous for sucking down even burnt cookies, hardly touched these. Need I say more?

A tasty way to use up leftover rice

Rice pudding is near the top of my list of comfort foods. Creamy, filling, warm, sweet and spicy -- does it get any better than that? After a stir fry left me with some rice, I decided to try Joy's recipe (p. 820). I was surprised to see this recipe doesn't use the usual baking method of placing the custard dish in a larger dish and filling the space with boiling water. Instead, Joy calls for buttering the dish and, if one chooses, dusting it with a layer of cookie crumbs. The usual components are all there: milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, rice and Joy adds more butter to the custard mixture and recommends experimenting with grated lemon zest or chopped dates instead of raisins. My verdict: Not bad, and I'm not sad to do away with the hot water bath.