Ratatouille Pizza

Back in the summer I made a huge stock pot full of ratatouille and froze it in portions.  I didn’t break into the stash until last night, when I defrosted a small bag of ratatouille and drained off the excess liquid.  Then I pre-baked a nice rolled-out piece of Vace pizza dough and spread the ratatouille all over.  I topped it all with some Wallaby cheese from Keswick Creamery, and baked it all until everything melted together.

It was basically a roasted vegetable pizza, except with the the tomato sauce all mixed in with the vegetables.  The eggplant was nice and smoky, and Keswick Creamery’s cheese was delicious as always.

Roasting End-Of-Season Peppers

I’ve been quite impressed with the resilience of the peppers in my garden.  Even as the weather has cooled down significantly, they’ve been producing plenty of peppers.  Too many, in fact.  But since I don’t want to overload on pickled peppers, I decided to roast the latest harvest and freeze it for later use.

I had a bunch of banana peppers, mild jalapeños, and a green bell pepper that I tossed with a little oil and salt, and roasted until everything was brown and falling apart.  (I roasted some cloves of garlic at the same time, for good measure).  Where the peppers’ skin looked thick I peeled it off, but otherwise I just tossed the roasted peppers into a large freezer bag and froze them.  Now they’ll be packed full of flavor when I defrost them, and I won’t have to worry about them getting mushy like I would if I had frozen them raw.

My only question now is what to make with them.  Maybe a roasted pepper pizza?  Ideas are welcome.

Reminder: Food Blogger Happy Hour III Tonight

Yes, it’s already that time again.  Join us for drinks and chatting at the Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan tonight, starting at 6pm.  The first two were totally fun, so don’t miss out.  See you there.

Caribou Coffee Fails Economics, Deliciously

This has nothing to do with local food, gardening, or sustainability, but for people who like cocoa and frequent Caribou Coffee, have you noticed anything peculiar about the menu?

The kids cocoa is the same size as a regular small cocoa, and it comes with cookie bits on top. But it’s almost a dollar cheaper than the not-cookie-bits-having cocoa for adults. This seems like a failure of basic economic principles. What kind of business model charges less for more product? I suppose it’s meant to be some sort of loss leader – maybe they hope to get parents to take their kids to Caribou to build brand loyalty and get the parents to buy more expensive drinks. And maybe they figure that any adult ordering cocoa will be too embarrassed to order the kiddie version.

Apparently I don’t have enough shame. And since I don’t actually want the cookie bits or the whipped cream, I just ask for the kids cocoa without all that stuff on it. It’s almost surprising that there’s not a surcharge for opting out of the toppings, given the backwards logic. But if you don’t embarrass easily, then feel free to exploit this loophole.

Proof that Local, Sustainable Food Need Not Be Healthy

The idea of eating local and sustainably produced food is associated with the idea of healthy eating.  Typically that’s a correct association, but there are plenty of ways a locavore can indulge in greasy deliciousness.  After all the Halloween sugar and libations, I was in the mood for some good hangover food.  So I fried up some local pastured bacon, then used the bacon grease to cook egg-in-the-hole (using a local eggs and bread, natch).

Yum.  Perfect thing for the day after Halloween.

Weekend Photos: Happy Halloween Edition

Yesterday was the DC Food Blogger Spooktacular Bake Sale.  Arugula Files has a great write-up with photos, and I’m sure organizer Adventures in Shaw will have a post-game wrap up as well.  I dropped off my chocolate loaf cake slices and bought some goodies that other bloggers had made – an excellent way to start off a great Halloween.

ModernDomestic's whoopie pies and chocolate peanut butter cupcakes were a big hit. I got one of the cupcakes - so good!

There were so many delicious goodies. Those are my chocolate loaf cake slices over on the right!

Cupcakes!

The bake sale was held at the 14th and U Farmer's Market, so I did a little shopping while I was there. I picked out a nice kabocha squash.

I also got a bunch of these beautiful, big Brussels sprouts.

Candy corn traffic cone. This has gotta be intentional, right?