Writers' Ratatouille

Ratatouille has become more popular in my house since a movie recently released with the same name. As soon as Lawson learned we were having it for dinner, he wanted to help make it. Eating, it, however, was a different story. Lawson didn't realize ratatouille had so many vegetables in it.

Tonight I hosted my monthly writing group meeting. The hostess gets to serve dinner, and because Pat's a vegetarian, I wanted to cook an entire meal that she could eat instead of having to just select the portions with no meat in them. Ratatouille is a perfect choice because not only is it meatless, but it's healthy, and I can make a large one and feed all six writing group members as well as my family. Of course, this dish is also perfect during Lent.

Served with whole grain pasta, ratatouille is high in fiber and relatively low in fat, depending on what kind of cheese I use:

Ingredients:
1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced
2 large yellow squash, sliced
1 large zucchini squash, sliced
2 or 3 sliced portabello mushrooms
1 large onion, sliced
1 can sliced black olives
1 jar Ragu Light tomato and basil spaghetti sauce
1 to 2 cups shredded light mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees while you slice all those veggies. Line a cookie sheet with Reynolds Release Non-stick foil and place eggplant on it. Spray with cooking spray and salt and pepper to taste. Roast eggplant slices for 10-15 minutes, until the just start to brown. While eggplant is roasting, saute' the zucchini and squash slices in a tbsp. of olive oil (use cooking spray if you want to) until they are just soft. Don't cook them until they're limp. Remove eggplant from oven. Line a 9 x 12 casserole dish with the eggplant slices. Place squash and zucchini slices over the eggplant. Saute the mushroom slices in 1 tbsp. of olive oil (use cooking spray if you wish) until they are just soft. Don't cook them until they're limp. Place mushrooms over the squash slices. Saute' onion slices in 1 tbsp. olive oil (use cooking spray if you wish) until they're just soft. Don't cook them until they're limp. Layer the onion slices over the mushroom slices. Then open the can of olives and drain. No, don't saute' them. They're already soft enough. Layer them over the onions. Pour the Ragu Light sauce over the vegetables. Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes or so or until the sauce is bubbly and the cheese has melted and browned just a bit.

I realize that many of my meals look the same. This picture, for instance, could also be a photo of my baked spaghetti. Or it could be a photo of Sabra's macaroni casserole. But it's not. Please trust me that this is really a photo of ratatouille.

I served the ratatouille with whole grain penne pasta and a cucumber salad. Here's how I made the salad:
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 ball fresh mozzarella, cut into small pieces
3 fresh basil leaves, chopped
Hendrickson's dressing

Combine cucumber, tomatoes, cheese and basil in a bowl. Toss. Dress with Hendrickson's dressing as desired. Toss again.

My writing group loved dinner. Stephen liked it too. I didn't hear a verdict from the boys, but I have a feeling Lawson put sauce on his noodles, avoiding the vegetables at all cost. He may have had an olive slice or two.

The Good News Is. . .

Sunday as I passed through the dining room with a basket of laundry, I found Stephen at the table perusing the newspaper. I was surprised to see him flipping through a Macy's circular, stopping at the china page.

"You're looking at plates?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, pointing to a Lenox pattern. "That one looks a lot like your Fruits of Life."

I agreed, but raised perplexed eyebrows. Since when was he interested in dishes? Was he already thinking about our anniversary gift? We have a milestone coming up in August, and for the past three years, I've been saying that I'm going to get a new set of everyday china for our 20th anniversary. But I wasn't expecting Stephen to buy it for me. That was going to be an anniversary gift to myself. Stephen could have something manly, like, I don't know, socks.

Stephen noticed my puzzled face and said, "I know you've been talking about getting new dishes. I didn't really pay much attention to you until you started blogging about food. Now that I've seen photos of our plates, I see how bad they look. They're all chipped and faded."

"Yeah," I replied. "Twenty years of use will do that to them."

"Look at that set," he said. "It looks familiar. Do we know somebody with those dishes?"

"We do," I told him. "We have a platter in that pattern."

And then I went on my way to the laundry room, whispering to myself a triumphant "Yes!" Stephen's on board with the anniversary china!

Budget Cut Bowlful

Even though it's only Tuesday, this week has not been the happiest at my work place. Having learned Friday about the University System's 30% budget cuts, my colleagues and I spent a nail-biting weekend only to return to work Monday amidst much speculation as to who was staying and who was going.

Fortunately, my colleagues and I feel a little more secure than others. After all, every college student has to have credit for a
freshman composition sequence. So almost all incoming students come through our doors. Still, we've got close working relationships with faculty in other departments, and we don't want to see anybody go.

Even though I'm not worried about losing my job (yet), I do wonder how much (little?) I'll be paid to do it. So I've started saving immediately. One way to do so is to cook economic meals, and tonight's was a perfect example.

I first had this low country supper when I was about Lawson's age. My mother's Uncle Robert taught it to her. It's an adaptation of the famous low country boil, just minus the shrimp (Come to think of it, I should make a low country boil during the Remler menu experiment). In place of the shrimp, we use cabbage. All the vegetables take on the flavor of the sausage, so minimal seasonings are necessary.

Ingredients:
1 ear of corn per person
1 head of cabbage
1 potato per person
1 to 2 packages of Polska kielbasa (depending on how many you're feeding)

Directions:
Shuck the corn and wash off the silks. Wash the cabbage and cut it into chunks. Wash the potatoes and cut them in half. Cut the sausage into short segments. Put about 2 quarts of water into a large stew pot and heat it to boiling. Add the potatoes. A few minutes later, add the corn. About 5 minutes later add the cabbage. Then a few minutes later add the sausage. Boil until the potatoes are done. Drain the water. Serve in a big dish. I use a casserole dish, but a big salad bowl will do also.

The calorie conscious cook can opt for lite sausage or even turkey sausage. Carbophobes can leave out the potatoes, but I must say that the dish isn't the same without the corn.

Not only is this meal easy on the pocketbook, but it also makes plenty, so you can either feed a crowd or have a second meal the next night. What a way to save!

Davis at 16

Back in the '70's, there was a TV show titled James at 15. Does anybody else remember that? And when the show went into its second season, the opening credits started out with the title James at 15, but then it crossed out the 15 and wrote a 16. That's what I wanted to do with the title of this posting. But as far as I can tell, Blogger won't let me do that. So just consider the following the title of this posting:


Davis at 15. Nope, 16.

In this house, birthday boys get to pick their dinners. And according to the votes of my readers, birthday boys get to do so, even when their mother is on a two-month roll making delicious meals with no repeats. The readers agree on a birthday exception, so we add one more rule to the Remler menu guidelines: Birthday meals don't count.

Davis chose Calypso chicken for dinner, and for the recipe, I'll just refer you to the original posting from January. Fortunately, Davis did stick around for the meal this time, maybe because he knew he was getting presents and a swell cake.

Now, I've made Davis some pretty darn good cakes before, but not until this year did I have to make maroon frosting. You see, Davis's high school colors are maroon and white (well more like maroon and eggshell, but let's not get picky). Eggshell, of course, was no problem, but I went through I don't know how many batches of icing trying to turn white icing into maroon. Whenever I put the maroon food color in that white glob of sweetness, it just turned pink. More maroon food color would turn it purple. Where was the maroon?

And then I heard a little voice in my head--the voice of my hair stylist, Tina Warbington. Tina said, "Remember your color wheel. Red plus white makes pink." Of course it does! That's when I realized with white icing I'd never get the maroon I needed. So I called Stephen, who, thank God, was on his way home from Davis's lacrosse game and happened to be just around the corner from the Kroger. I asked him to please swing by for two cans of chocolate icing, which he did.

The chocolate did the trick. Maroon food color in brown icing makes maroon icing! Well, more like a brownish maroon, but it wasn't purple! So Davis got his famous BC Cadets birthday cake with military star candles.

And Lawson took the extra batter and extra icing to make his own cake, which he topped with little army tank candles. When it was all finished, it looked like a battle atop a human brain.

Happy birthday, Davis!

Graded Paper Sunday Breakfast

On weekends, Stephen likes to sleep in a bit, usually emerging from the bedroom around 8:30 or 9:00. Lawson is the second to appear, coming downstairs around mid-morning. Davis complains every time we wake him up at the crack of noon. So usually I'm the first one up in the morning.

Usually I check my e-mail and catch up on the morning news, enjoying the quiet of the house. Days like today find me at the computer grading freshman comp essays. After an hour or so, Stephen is usually up, and I need a break from slogging through firm grasps of the obvious, like "Things will happen in today's society" or "The future looks mighty auspicious."

So I make delicious breakfast.

Usually, my breakfast is a bowl of Fiber One and a banana--and not the flaky, nutty Fiber One, either. I eat the little sticks. So on paper grading Sundays, I need a more enticing breakfast, but one just as healthy as well. My vegetable omelet meets both criteria.

Ingredients:
2 eggs or 2 ounces of Egg Beaters (or another egg substitute)
any vegetables in the refrigerator, cut into small, small pieces
cheese (if you want it)
1 tbsp olive oil
cooking spray
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Today I used eggs for Stephen's omelet and Egg Beaters for my omelet. In my fridge, I had squash, zucchini, onion, red pepper, broccoli, spinach, black olives and feta cheese. When I cut my vegetables, I make sure the broccoli is cut especially small because it's so dense and I want it to cook all the way through. After cutting up the veggies, I put the olive oil in a small nonstick skillet and saute them on medium heat until they're soft. When I do that, I put the spinach in last because it doesn't take long to cook at all. When the veggies are done, I remove them from the pan, and if necessary, I spray the skillet with cooking spray. Then I add the eggs (This is Stephen's omelet) and salt and pepper. I cook the eggs until they start to look firm around the edges. Then I add half of the vegetables, picking out the red peppers because Stephen doesn't like them. I put the vegetables on one half of the eggs; then I sprinkle the feta cheese on top. Gently, I lift the vegetable-less half of the eggs with a spatula and fold it over the vegetables. I let the omelet sit for a minute or so to firm up a little more; then I gently turn it over to let the other side firm up. I serve Stephen's omelet and then go through the same process for my omelet with the Egg Beaters.

The Egg Beaters version of the omelet is a fabulous Weight Watchers breakfast. Without the cheese, the omelet is only three points. Adding cheese, of course, adds points, but the number of points depends on how much cheese you use and what kind. Real eggs, of course, add points too.

Depending on the quality of the essays I've been reading, I'm sometimes also compelled to make berries and yogurt to eat with the omelet. Today was one of those days. I'm sure if my students had been in the room, they would have said, "In today's society, breakfast is a major part of our lives." Anyway, I served today's omelet with cut up fresh strawberries and banana, topped with a big dollop of fat-free vanilla yogurt.

Then I sat down with my husband and enjoyed my meal and beamed as he said, "Gee, Nance, you're swell."

Baked Spaghetti

Spaghetti is a comfort meal. It's easy. Kids like it. And it's cheap. It's also quick, especially if you serve the kind where you just throw some sauce on the noodles with some shredded cheese. Sometimes, though, a baked spaghetti is just right for a cold day. And in light of yesterday's absurd budget cuts on the University System of Georgia, I felt compelled to prepare an inexpensive comfort meal.

Here's how I did it:
Ingredients:
1/3 -1/2 box of whole grain spaghetti, cooked and drained
1 lb. lean ground beef (the leanest you can get)
cooking spray
1 jar Ragu Light tomato and basil spaghetti sauce
1 can Campbell's Healthy Request cream of mushroom soup
2 small jars of whole button mushrooms (because Lawson loves those thangs)
1 cup (more if you like) part-skim or fat free shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
Brown the ground beef and drain off any fat. Spray a 9 x 12 casserole dish with cooking spray. Combine beef, spaghetti sauce, and mushroom soup. Add spaghetti and mushrooms. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

While the spaghetti is baking, you can make a green salad to eat with it. Then, when the meal is ready, you and the rest of your family can say the blessing, including a small request that the Georgia state legislature comes to its senses before it comes to a budget vote.

Just sayin'.

A Lenten Meal: Spinach Stuffed Trout

Ahh, the Lenten season is upon us. That means no meat on Friday. It also means we can finally eat all that trout Stephen and the boys caught last fall and tucked away in our freezer.

I was never a fish fan until recently. Although I loved shellfish of all kinds, fish filet, unless fried, always struck me as rather bland. But then I became a Catholic, and I had to learn to like fish because we just can't have shrimp and crab legs every Friday.

This dish is an especially healthy one--only four Weight Watcher points. What's more, it's tasty and easy to make. If you don't have fishermen in your family, purchase some trout filets at the Publix. If they don't have trout (or if it's too expensive), use tilapia. That fish works well too.

Ingredients:
4 (or so) trout filets
1 pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 oz. crumbled light feta cheese
2 to 3 tbsp. Egg Beaters or egg substitute
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is heating, press all the water out of the chopped spinach. Then place it between paper towels, or even a dish towel, and press again, pressing out all the water. Put the spinach in a food processor with the feta cheese, Egg Beaters, and seasonings. Pulse several times until all those ingredients are well mixed. Line a cookie sheet with Reynolds Release Non-Stick foil. Lay the filets on the foil. Put a dollop of spinach mixture on each filet. Then roll each filet around the spinach mixture, securing with toothpicks if necessary. Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes.

I serve these tasty seafood rolls with grits (my husband's required side dish for fish) and another vegetable (tonight it was carrots).

The Votes Are In:
Oh, and many thanks to my readers who voted on the birthday dilemma. Overwhelmingly, the votes recommended allowing Davis to have the dinner of his choice. Readers did not mind breaking a streak for a birthday boy and graciously accepted that another Calypso chicken dinner would not "count" as a break in the streak. Davis thanks you all as well.