BECAUSE I LOVE PATTON OSWALT!

Yes I said it. I love Mister Oswalt. And what is Mister Oswalt most famously known for?

Um.... being from Virginia?

what? NO!

Say! Wasn't he Spence on King of Queens?

Why yes he was, but still NO!

Being the voice of Remy in Ratatouille? 

DING DING DING! We have a winner! I also follow him on Twitter and he is incredibly funny. Now when I say I love him it is more like I really appreciate him making me laugh.

Moving along. As said yesterday. After two LONG weeks, my produce box came. So I looked at the contents along with my Simply in Season  NEW book and decided I should make ratatouille. According to Wikipedia, ratatouille is a traditional French Provencal stewed vegetable dish, originating in Nice (which I have been to and it is.... nice!). Hey-oh! Apparently there is some dispute about which is better: layering or simmering everything together. Miss JC (That's Julia Child to all you who aren't her close and personal BFF) like to layer and if it is good enough for JC then it is good enough for me!

Grab a large saute pan. Cut two onions and mince 4 gloves of garlic. Grab some goggles because this gets intense.

Put both in your pan with a bay leaf and some EVOO. Saute until translucent. While this is cooking, chop a medium eggplant.

Add to dish along with 1.5 tsps each of basil, rosemary, salt and marjoram. Cook for 10-15 minutes WITH the lid on.While this is cooking cut 2 summer squash, 2 peppers (red green or yellow it doesn't matter) and 2 tomatoes. 

Cook for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally. 

Serve on some type of carb (I chose Kashi's 7 whole grain blend) or as a side dish. Top with fresh parsley and/or grated Parmesan cheese!

Another artsy closeup:

When I presented it to Todd, he looked dubious, but he went back for seconds and he said that his silence said it all. I hate to tell him, but him not saying anything does NOT tell me YES! I love this! It COULD mean quite the opposite. Either way! I killed the contents of my box using up one of the eggplants I got, both peppers and summer squash and the onions and tomatoes I still had in my fridge from the box I received two weeks ago. That's right my friends, when the produce you get is fresh, it lasts forever in your fridge. I am constantly amazed!

AFTER A TWO WEEK WAIT MY PRODUCE BOX CAME!

I turned a quarter of a century this year. And contrary to popular belief, most people DO consider this a huge birthday. I did as well. I was lucky enough that one of my best friends HAPPENED to have a work recruitment just right down the road and I got to see her on my birthday *BONUS!* Besides that extra special treat, she got me the gift that I swear will keep on giving.

YES. Simply in Season. This book has recipes that are separated into the four seasons with recipes featuring the produce available FOR each season! And then BAM! WTF! Produce Box takes a two week vacay. I have been itching so badly to use this I cannot even stand it. Luckily I had some produce left over, so tonight I will let you all know what I did just to try out one of these recipes.

This is from the fall section and was called "Maple Parsnips." WizIdbijbfaiubfb! I do not have parsnips! BUT! I have butternut squash. So I subbed it out. Today I give you: Maple Butternut squash. Ta Da!

Pre-heat oven to 400.

Cut your butternut squash in half. Scoop out the seeds. You can keep them and roast them if you like. Mine? To the trash they went. 

Cut each half in half and then cut those that halves in half. Translation: cut into four strips. 

I was feeling lazy, so I lined my pan with foil for easy clean up. Each strip then gets lined up and placed in the oven for 20 minutes.

Take 1 Tbsp Butter, 2 Tbsp walnuts and heat over medium heat. Once melted add 1 Tbsp maple syrup. I will be totally truthful. I used smart balance "butter" and sugar free "syrup." It turned out fine, but there is not a whole lot of "realness" to either of those products, but it turned out very tasty nonetheless.

Bring to a boil and then immediately take off the heat. Ding! What's that? Oh! How convenient the butternut squash a ready to come out of the oven!

Roasty toasty. You can stop here, and eat them plain if you would like (I def. snacked on like 3 of these just standing there). But I added them to a bowl and then drizzled the nutty maple mixture over these and voila! Fin!

SO. FREAKING. GOOD! It made my toes curl. I could not believe this was as good as it was! Tomorrow I am sharing the simple summer ratatouille I made tonight! Everyone was a member of the clean plate club. Until tomorrow!

Inappropriate Summer Meals

I love hot things. Why? I am routinely cold, and I am not talking a touch on the chilly side, I am talking my fingers or your bare skin results in frost bite. I’m talking there are throw blankets in every room of my house and in every car that I own. People: I have a space heater under my desk which has been turned on... in July! With record highs in North Carolina! Obviously I have to deal because I married a person who if I could harness their body heat into electricity I could power my house for free. It’s not natural how hot-natured he is and how cold-natured I am. It defies all logic. 

One of the ways I deal is I drink coffee like it is going out of style and eat soup for lunch on a daily basis. And yes I realize this is a totally normal thing-if you live in Sweden whose average temperature in July is 70. Pheft! 70? We’re lucky if it stays 70 degrees for 5 days in the spring. Which P.S.-- I would like to say I am officially mourning the loss of the season formally known as Spring in North Carolina. This year it went from 30 to 100 in a week.  Thou dost displease me weather! Make a note of it.

While I love a calm chowder, I wanted to make my own summery hot soup. So I did.

So it’s summer- this means summer squash and the last of those pesky acorn squashes from my produce box.
Preheat your oven to 400. Grab your food processor, one sauce pot and a saucepan and as P. Diddy says: LET’S GOOOOO!

Cut your acorn squash into 3-4 pieces and roast for 15 minutes. While this is roasting you can go ahead and cook the other vegetables.

Cut up 2 summer squash and add to a hot saucepan with EVOO. Cook on medium heat until soft. About mid way through add chopped onion and minced garlic. (I cheated and used already cut frozen onions) Once soft, add in shredded carrot and cook until all the vegetables are soft.

In your pan, cook down 2-3 chopped large field tomatoes on medium heat. I didn’t bother to remove the seeds, because usually this removed the goo that holds the seeds. I like to get all the moisture from the tomatoes that I can. Next: to this pan I add the scooped out flesh of the acorn tomatoes. I let these fuse together.

We’re ready for the food processor! Assemble and add the tomato and acorn squash mixture first. Turn on and mix until smooth. I then add the summer squash and carrot mixture along with 7-9 springs of FRESH basil. (You could also use cilantro if you were feeling funky) This will start to incorporate nicely.

This goes back into the pot where you can now decide how thick you want this to be. Dilute to your preference with stock (I wound up using about ½ cup of vegetable stock because I wanted this to be hearty soup.  Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Once finished, I knew I was missing something…you guessed it! TRADER JOES ROASTED CORN! Hate on it all you want- it definitely gave the finished product some needed texture and man do I love it’s flavor!

And there you have it! A soup that normal people could enjoy in the summer! And it was yummy!