dish 5) ratatouille

OH MY GOD! Possibly a new favourite dish here folks! So this all started when I was watching my new favourite DVD - the Gourmet Farmer. For those who don't know, Sydnet food critic Matthew Evans decided to persue his life long dream of sustainable living and farming etc so he moved to Tasmania and bought a farm. Then the film crew tag along to watch his progress. It is so amazing. I learnt from his friend Nick Haddow (aka gourmet cheesemaker and all-round genius at life) how to make cheese in the kitchen :O Not that i would attempt it... but i learned so much, and suddenly all i want are pigs and chooks and a huge vegie patch. So yeah, I was watching some special features which were just him cooking recipes, and he made Ratatouille in his Dutch oven. I suddenly remembered that Hayden had a Dutch Oven - never been used - in the cupboard. I had my mind made up and bought the ingredients and made it at around 5pm... basically i used the following basic ingredients:

- 2 brown onions, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 eggplants, cubed
- 1 red capsicum, diced
- 3 medium zucchini, cubed
- 3 portabella mushrooms (just cos matthew evans used some hehe)
- 2 tins good quality chopped tomatoes

Chop it all up and cook it off in some oil, then add the tomatoes.

Put it in a moderate oven (around 170) for as many hours as you can wait. We waited about.... 3 or so. Take it out and CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

Serve it with some crusty grilled bread, and i swear on my life you will have a new favourite healthy dish! Seriously worth the wait - so smooth and soft with such punchy flavour - all natural flavours! It's funny that we used sourdough bread because on the Gourmet Farmer they explain how sourdough is made and we were all like "eeeeeew" haha. Forgot about that one pretty quickly though :)

I am seriously in love with this cast iron dish right now. Remember a while ago I made some chili con carne and it tasted really weak and watery? Well, with cast iron those are problems of the past!! I cooked off some onion, garlic, red capsicum, sweet paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin and coriander in the dish, and then added the defrosted container of chili to it. I put it in the oven for about 1-2 hours and it was ORGASMIC! It was not even the same dish anymore and i was able to tell myself that i am still amazing at life and my pride is re-established once more! HAZAAAAHHHHHHH