Thursday, December 11, 2008

CEIMB - Cornmeal-Crusted Roasted Vegetable Ratatouille Tart

The Wiivers chose Cornmeal-Crusted Roasted Veggie Ratatouille this week. I was ever so close to not making this recipe-mostly because it sounded complicated and time consuming (after all it took up two whole pages in the cookbook), and because there seemed to be a number of ingredients which I didn't have. But...after hearing that this recipe was great, I added a few more items to the grocery list...like cornmeal, whole wheat baking flour (???), eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes...you know, pretty much everything in the recipe.
Well, the recipe wasn't as complicated as I first thought. It did however require a number of different steps -- and we all know how much I hate following recipes! I ended up substituting regular all-purpose flour for the whole wheat baking flour because (1) a 5lb bag of whole wheat flour was $5; (2) the recipe only called for 1/3 a cup of said whole wheat flour, and (3) what would I do with the other 4.99lbs of whole wheat flour. I'm pretty sure you couldn't tell a difference given the strong presence of cornmeal in the crust! I also substituted olive oil for canola oil.
The crust mixed together nicely. And I survived the flashback to the four pie crusts I made in my teeny-tiny food chopper at Thanksgiving.
The crust perhaps turned out a bit thin since my tart pan is 11". Also, the sides aren't removable so I was a little bit concerned about getting the tart out of the pan once it cooked.
Overall, I thought the ratatouille was great. It had a great flavor and the tart didn't fall apart too much while trying to get it out of the pan. Although I am not such a fan of eggplant, I did like it in the tart.

Oskar, who loves to be in the kitchen while I cook patiently watched the whole process unfold. There is a reason I call him Ratatouille!

In other exciting news Santa brought me a new dishwasher last week. Apparently Santa decided to come early (and also that I had not been good enough to get said convection range that I had put on my list to Santa). Thank you Santa!

Its so nice to have a dishwasher model that isn't as old as I am! Now if only the rest of my kitchen wasn't from 1975!!!

4 comments:

  1. Nice dishwasher! Your tart looks great -- I'm glad you liked it! I assume the WW flour was mainly to give it a little extra health boost -- but with all those veggies, it was plenty healthy anyway! I've got a huge bag of it, and you are welcome to borrow some if you ever need it -- if you can't share whole wheat flour with your hallmates, you can you share it with? Nice job on the tart!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nothing wrong with subbing! I don't like buying ingredients I know I won't use and will collect dust in my pantry. Congrats on the new dishwasher!
    Clara @ iheartfood4thought

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow a great dishwasher! I wish I could get one for Christmas! I enjoyed it too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. How exciting! I love getting new appliances.

    ReplyDelete