Tonight I had my family over for dinner. I haven't had them over in a while, and my brother's girlfriend's birthday was a week ago, so we had a lot to celebrate.
And as of last night I had no idea what I was going to make.
But I got some inspiration from a movie I watched- Ratatouille. So I decided to make exactly that- ratatouille. And, for a nice Sunday dinner I thought roast beef (beef tenderloin to be exact) and roasted potatoes would be nice. And I hoped that all three would go together as a meal. I guess we'd find out.
Oh, and I also made an ice cream pie for dessert. I'll save that for the end.
To Begin: ratatouille.
I researched this a bit, and after finding several very complex French versions, I came across a very simple one from one of my favorite websites (and it's inspired by the movie's recipe): Smitten Kitchen.
So here goes.
Begin with a base of tomato puree, then add chopped onion, minced garlic and a tablespoon of olive oil and mix together.
Next, thinly slice zucchini, summer squash, red pepper and Italian eggplant (these are much smaller than regular eggplant). and begin layering them on top of the sauce in a ring, starting from the outside and working towards the center.
Next up- roasted potatoes. Roasted fingerling potatoes to be exact.
These are just really fun little potatoes that come in a few different colors. Like yellow, red and purple. I like them better than whole potatoes for really no other reason than they are cute and colorful.
Now, you can simply just wash and roast them, but I peeled them a bit and cut the larger ones so that all the potatoes were roughly uniform in size.
Then I drizzled them with a small amount of olive oil and some garlic, salt, pepper and thyme and tossed them into a roasting pan. These roasted at 425 for about an hour.
And finally, the beef. Beef tenderloin. Yum!
I was hoping to get a large one, but the market only had two 3-pounders, so that's what I got.
Now, a lot of people like to pan sear the beef before oven roasting it, which I recommend too, but I just had too much going on today so I skipped that step. Instead I rubbed the meat with a little olive oil and some salt & pepper, then I roasted them at 425 for about 50 minutes.
Now, if you have been paying attention, you would know that all three things I made are all going to cook at 425, all for about an hour, so luckily I could put them all in the oven together. I just waited a little while to put the vegetables in so that everything would be done at the same time.
This is super important when cooking, if not the most important- always time out your meal so that everything is done at the same time. My mother taught me this when I was younger, and it is one of the most important cooking tips I ever learned.
Now, in typical Carrie fashion, when I am cooking for company I Always Forget to take pictures when everything is done!!! Luckily tonight before we finished everything I remembered and snapped a few shots. Sorry they aren't the greatest, but you get the gist.
And p.s.: this meal was so good (if I may say so!).
Ok, as promised, here's dessert.
Per my brother, his girlfriend likes ice cream cake. And if it could be vanilla and maybe pumpkin too, that would be even better.
Challenge accepted.
Ingredients: vanilla ice cream, pumpkin ice cream, mini vanilla wafer cookies, vanilla wafer cookie crust, whipped topping and caramel sundae topping.
Let the ice cream get very soft (but not melted!) and mix it in a bowl so its the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. And do one layer of Ice cream at a time, freezing between layers (this step is Very Important!!!)
Layer one: vanilla. Topped with caramel sauce and crushed cookies.
(sorry for the lack of photos of this step)
Layer two: pumpkin. Topped with Cool Whip.
Then I decorated that with a ring of the cookies, filled with a dollop of caramel.
That's it! And, it was Super Delicious!!!
Ok kids, that's all for me tonight. Hope you enjoyed this one- I know I did!!!
See you soon.
Love, Me.
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