I made the most of a box of veggies that my neighbour Ramon dropped in and decided to take advantage of the oven space by cooking four or five dishes at the one time.When you're going to roast something have a quick look in fridge for anything else you can pop in to make the most of cooking time and organize food for the following days.
Heres what I made-
Roasted ratatoille
Roasted Aubergine stuffed with goats cheese,barley, tomato and fresh basil
Tomato sauce
Roasted pumkin and sweet potatoes
Autumn soup
This is no rocket science,easy peasy and boy was I glad the following day having my fridge full of roasted veg ready to be transformed.
Ratatoille
Chop and roughly dice the following-
10 medium sized ripe tomatoes
2 medium onions
1 courgette
1 aubergine
1 red pepper
add-
3 peeled cloves of garlic
1 or two rosemary sprigs
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
1 very large and very generous measure of olive oil
Pop into a preheated oven at 180C ,stir every now and then until it has reduced considerably and the vegetables are soft.
What you´re left with is a delicious rich tomato and vegetable chunky sauce(not unlike real ratatoille-which is slow cooked meticulously adding one vegetable at a time-but this is oven roasted and equally good)
Use this sauce on pasta,with rice,polenta or cereals-add some fresh sauted mushrooms-cooked beans
I whizzed it up for my daughter who now doesn,t eat onions,peppers,aubergine and courgettes(ahhhh three year olds) -as a rich tomato sauce with a wee bit of organic tomato sauce she guppled all the vegetables up(ha ha Anouk )which I added to some cooked barley(lovely and chewy-a great alternative to rice)and some fried smoked tofu.
When I had the ratatoille in the oven I sliced a large aubergine length ways (about half an inch in thickness) brushed with olive oil and popped it into the oven.I turned it over to brown on bothsides and took it out(genius writing skills).
With the a small bit of the ratatoille sauce(to make use of cooking time I took out a few spoonfuls half during the cooking time and blended it up-for the aubergine rolls and for my hungry daughter) I added a few spoons of cooked barley that I had in the fridge,fresh basil and spread the mixture on each slice with some aged goats cheese and rolled it up.In a small baking dish I put a dollop of sauce on the bottom ,aubergine rolls on top with some diced fried smoked tofu sprinkled on top and cook it in the oven until the cheese melted a wee bit .Then I sprinked some fresh basil(still alive in the garden ,I love it ,November and fresh basil-joy) , some fresh parsley and a drizzle of basil oil and our lunch was ready too...yummm
Also added to the little group of oven buddies was some roughly chopped pumpkin and sweet potatoes this time drizzled with sunflower oil(because I wasn,t sure at first what I,d use them for and sunflower oil has a neutral flavour -so you can use them for sweet or savoury dishes after)and roasted until soft.
The following day I sauted two finely diced onions with some chopped garlic for about 5 minutes added the roasted sweet potatoes and pumpkin ,3 sage leaves,vegetable stock and oatmilk and blended until smooth(adjust the amount of stock and milk to taste),a dash of basil oil and salt and pepper and you have a delicious autumn soup in 10 minutes.Anouk has also declared that she doesn,t like sweet potatoes or pumpkin but in a soup all is forgotten-hail soups!
(For a spicey adult twist add some curry powder,chillies, nutmeg or cinnamon to the onion at the beginning-play people play)
Everything gets whizzed up in autumn for soups in my house-you could blend the cooked ratatoille with less stock and add lots of pesto or fresh basil and crunchy croutons(dice some stale bread brushed with garlic and olive oil and rosemary and leave in the oven until crunchy and golden stirring occassionally )
Tomorrow I,m thinking of some some corn pancakes filled with the ratatoille
or
with polenta and lots of melted cheese
or
Lasagne with ratatoille
or
pumpkin and sweet potato pie
or
the list goes on,and on-see how easy cooking is when you have a fridge full of oven roasted leftovers(or standbys,I prefer the word standbys)
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