Root Vegetable Ratatouille

I always enjoy cooking with vegetables, and ratatouille is one of my favorite dishes. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I came up with a dish that replaces most of the traditional ratatouille veggies (eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash and seasonings) with some of my favorite root vegetables (rutabaga, turnips, acorn squash, along with traditional yellow squash and bell pepper), autumn spices and a Golden Delicious apple for a bit of sweetness. I guess you can even call this dish “rootatouille!” All kidding aside, this is a great recipe to prepare along with your Thanksgiving dinner.

You will need to put in a little bit of effort ahead of time to peel and chop the vegetables. A few minutes in the microwave will help soften the acorn squash for easy cutting, and you’ll want to peel and slice the apple last minute to avoid it from browning. Once the prep work is done, all you’re looking at is 10-15 minutes of sautéing the veggies, and then the dish is ready to serve!

Root Vegetable Ratatouille

1 rutabaga, peeled and diced
1 turnip, peeled and diced
1 yellow squash, diced (you can use green zucchini squash if you prefer)
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 acorn squash (prep directions below)
1 Golden Delicious apple, peeled and diced (prep the apple just before you are ready to add to remaining ingredients to avoid browning)
2 tbspn olive oil
2 tbspn brown sugar
1/2 tspn cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
2 tbspn maple syrup (regular pancake syrup will also work)
salt and pepper to taste

Start by cooking the acorn squash whole in the microwave on high for 5 minutes. Carefully remove (it will be hot), let sit until cooled. Once cooled, cut in half, remove pulp and seeds. Remove skin, cut the squash into small chunks, set aside.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the rutabaga, stir until evenly coated, cook for about 5 minutes, until it starts to soften and the pale color starts to turn into a golden brown. Next, add the turnip, pepper and yellow (or zucchini) squash. Stir together and cook for another 5 minutes, until all veggies start to soften. At this point, you’ll want to peel and dice the apple.

Next, add the apple and acorn squash to the mix, stir together. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and syrup, mix together. Lower the heat, let simmer, stirring occasionally until all veggies are softened to your liking. If the mixture looks like it’s starting to dry up, you can add a bit of water or broth to loosen it up. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve and enjoy!

Pumpkin Ricotta and Fig Crostini with Honey Maple Syrup

I always got a kick out of how television painter Bob Ross would turn artistic mistakes into ‘happy little accidents’.  This recipe isn’t so much of a mistake or an accident as it is a substitution, but it’s end result still made me much happier than anticipated.

My first intentions were to take the classic Italian dish of fresh figs, ricotta and honey, and add a little seasonal flare to it. My version would be fresh figs, pumpkin ricotta and a maple honey syrup. The only problem was that on the day that I planned to make this, I couldn’t find any figs. Every store I checked…nada. I guess I wasn’t the only one with figs on the brain that day.

I was offered two alternatives by one of the produce people that I spoke to that day. They suggested either dried figs or fig preserves. I didn’t think that dried figs would be a good substitute, but the jarred fig preserves got my wheels spinning. Since the preserves are obviously meant to be a spread, why not turn my idea into an autumn crostini? The lack of fresh figs turned into a happy and delicious Pumpkin Ricotta and Fig Preserve Crostini drizzled with maple honey syrup.

NOTE – the pumpkin ricotta is not as sweet and creamy as a pumpkin spread, filling or mousse. The ricotta cheese flavor stands out the most…with a bit of a cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice kick. It’s  quite delicious.

The following ingredients makes for a small batch of pumpkin ricotta. You can double up on ingredients to make a larger batch.
Pumpkin Ricotta
4 oz ricotta
2 oz pumpkin puree
1 tspn powdered sugar
1/4 tspn pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tspn cinnamon
1/2 tspn vanilla extract

Honey Maple Syrup
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup

1 small jar fig preserves

1 French baguette, thinly sliced and toasted

Directions:
Combine all pumpkin ricotta ingredients into a bowl, whip together until well combined. Chill in fridge for at least 1 hour.
Melt butter in a small sauce pan. Remove pan from heat, stir in honey and maple syrup.
Lightly coat the toasted crostini bread with fig preserves, add either a smear or dollop of pumpkin ricotta. Lightly drizzle with honey maple syrup.

If you do happen to come across fresh figs, you can slice them and dip them into the ricotta, or you can add a dollop of the ricotta to the top of the figs and drizzle with the honey maple syrup.

Baked Tomato Zucchini Casserole

Here’s an easy, quick and healthy recipe that you can serve as either a side dish or a main course. With just a handful of fresh ingredients, you’ll have this meal assembled and cooked in less than an hour. My original plan for this dish was to bread the individual slices of zucchini and tomatoes, and then stack the slices in a baking dish. To save time and ingredients (and to make it a bit more interesting), I instead decided to make a basic breadcrumb topping (breadcrumbs sautéed in melted butter and mixed with parmesan cheese), and use the topping as a layer within the casserole. I also used a 50/50 mixture of regular breadcrumbs and panko breadcrumbs for an extra crunchy texture. Regular breadcrumbs will of course work fine on their own.

Ingredients:
3 green zucchini, sliced thin length-wise
8 plum tomatoes, sliced thin
1/2 large yellow onion, sliced thin, separated into individual rings
1/3 cup basil, finely chopped
garlic powder
salt and pepper
olive oil
2 tbspn butter
1 cup breadcrumbs (I used 1/2 regular and 1/2 panko breadcrumbs)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Step 1: Making the breadcrumb topping
Melt butter in a small skillet; add breadcrumbs and sauté until lightly browned. Remove from heat, and stir in parmesan cheese. Set aside.

Step 2: Assembling the casserole
Preheat oven to 375˚. Lightly spray an 8×8 baking dish. Cover the bottom of the dish with a single layer of zucchini. Next place a single layer of onion rings (you can spread out the individual rings so that the onions do not  over-power the dish), then add a single layer of tomatoes. Season with garlic powder, salt and pepper (to your liking). Sprinkle some of the basil on top. Drizzle with olive oil. Top with a light coating of breadcrumbs. Repeat the layered steps (zucchini, onion, tomatoes, seasoning, basil, breadcrumbs) until all ingredients are used up. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool slightly. Slice, serve and enjoy!

The assembled casserole.

Sliced and ready to enjoy!

Mini Meatball Roll-Ups

This past weekend I had gotten together with my closest college friends, as we celebrated our 20-something year reunion. While putting plans into place for our get together, we joked around about our daily diets of bodega-store eggrolls and street corner meatball sandwiches (we were starving art students at the time…don’t judge). This, of course, gave me the perfect idea for an appetizer to bring to our reunion. I simply cooked up some loose ground meat using my traditional meatball recipe mixed with a quick tomato sauce, then rolled it up in wonton wrappers with some shredded mozzarella cheese. What started off as a fun little idea turned into a creative, bite-sized alternative to a classic Italian party favorite!

There’s no real need for me to get too specific with ingredients for this recipe. I am well aware that the cook in every household, especially an Italian house, is partial to their own family meatball recipe. I do have my own meatball recipe listed below, if you are in need of one. One pound of your preferred meatball recipe, along with one cup of your preferred tomato sauce/Sunday gravy will work wonders. I used wonton wrappers because they roll up to a perfect bite-sized appetizer. You can also use eggroll wrappers for a larger portion, or any other pastry or dinner roll wrapper that you prefer. I also have listed below both a baking and stove top method for preparing the meatball mixture. I prefer baking my meatballs, but use whatever method you prefer. After all, it wouldn’t be a true meatball recipe if you weren’t able to make it to your liking!

Mini Meatball Roll-Ups

(You can use my quick sauce and meatball recipe below, or you can use your own preferred sauce and meatball recipe)
1 lb cooked meatball mixture*
1 cup tomato sauce, plus your preference of seasoning for taste (I used garlic powder, oregano, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning)
Shredded mozzarella cheese
1 pack wonton wrappers (makes 52 wraps)

Oven preparation
Preheat oven to 375˚. Break up meatball mixture* into a glass baking dish. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until meat is cooked. You can check on it occasionally and carefully break the meat apart with a wooden spoon. Remove from oven when fully cooked, set aside to cool. Heat the sauce in a sauce pan, season to your preference. When the meatball mixture is cooled, break apart into small pieces (a few pulses in a food processor works well for this). Mix the sauce with the meatball mixture, set aside to completely cool.

Stovetop preparation
Heat 1 tbspn olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add meatball mixture*, breaking into pieces with a wooden spoon. Cook until loose meat is no longer pink. Add tomato sauce, season to taste. Simmer until meatball mixture and sauce are mixed well. Remove from heat, let cool.

Assembly
Place one tspn of cooled meatball and sauce mixture in the middle of a wonton wrapper, top with a pinch of shredded mozzarella cheese (be sure that the mixture is cooled, otherwise it will soften the wrapper). Roll the wrapper up half way from the bottom up. Lightly wet the top edge of the wrapper with water, then continue to roll and lightly pinch the edge to seal. Repeat until all wonton wrappers are filled or all meatball mixture is used.

Place the wrappers on a lightly sprayed baking sheet (you will need two baking sheets if you are making all 52 wrappers). Lightly spray the rolled wraps with cooking spray. Bake in the oven at 375˚ for 20 minutes or until the wrappers are golden brown.

Serve and enjoy!

*Dom’s Meatball Mixture

1 lb ground beef. pork and veal mixture
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1 tbspn Italian seasoning
salt and pepper
1 tbspn milk

Combine and thoroughly mix together all ingredients in a large bowl.