appetizers and breakfast

I am a great fan of multi-purpose things.

My couch is also a bed. My coffee table is also storage. My appetizers are also breakfast.

I haven't been able to find a local bakery that makes good sausage rolls. In fact, of all the bakeries I've been to, I found only one that had sausage rolls. They weren't very good. I mean really, how can you mess up something that is basically "pigs in a blanket"?

I'm most familiar with sausage rolls eaten at lunch or as an afternoon snack, with tea. But I've also had small versions of them as cocktail foods. And since I'm somewhat recently enamoured with biscuits and sausage gravy, I figure we may as well have them for breakfast too.

Because really, who wants to make breakfast the morning after a cocktail party. Or a family Christmas party.... I need cocktails for those.

Sausage Rolls

What you need:

• Biscuit dough!
• Sausage
• ...
• that's basically it
• but dijon mustard is tasty
• and egg wash makes them pretty (one egg with half a shell's worth of water beaten in)

(but of course, there is no egg in the picture)

What you gotta do:

Make yourself a batch of biscuit dough. I'm going to do these rolls two ways, so I've divided mine in half and rolled out one of the halves into a rectangle that's about 10 inches long and 4 inches wide.

For the first batch, I'm going to start with raw sausage. Whatever kind you like best. These came from a local deli/grocery that makes their own sausages, usually with local pigs. If you have time and want to dirty another bowl, you can mix in some breadcrumbs and extra seasoning (sage, parsley, thyme). I opted to go bare bones with my sausage and just brush the dough with a bit of grainy dijon mustard.

Bust open a sausage and place a thumb-thick strip of sausage a little closer to one edge.

I brushed a bit of egg wash on the inside of the dough before I rolled it up.

Slice the roll into 10 pieces that are about 1 inch wide each and once they're on a baking sheet, brush them with more egg wash. 

Into a 400 degree oven they go. Mine's been preheating this whole time. Has yours?

And since my biscuits tend to rise quite a bit...

Some of them toppled, but 25 minutes later they came out looking just fine.

Now, if you've got some leftover sausage, or if you don't want to deal with the raw, you can do this all with cooked sausage.

Again, roll out a piece of biscuit dough. This one didn't quite make it into being rectangular. Close enough.

The mustard and egg wash go on first, then the sausage. I cut into the sausage in a couple places so that it would lay a little straighter.

Roll, slice, eggwash.

This time, I baked a little hotter, 425 degrees which is typical for biscuits, and only left them in for 20 minutes.

These, with a bit of gravy on top... breakfast.

Or dipped into a little more dijon... appetizers.

What's your favourite multi-purpose food?

rats

I've loved ratatouille ever since I read "The Princess and the Zucchini."

And no it was not erotica.

It's a short story from an anthology that was published in the early 80s by the University of BC press, and it's not your typical fairy tale. The princess does not kiss her frog (zucchini) and live happily ever after; instead, she makes dinner for the family.

Ratatouille.

And though eggplant is often seen as the primary ingredient in this provencal vegetable stew, you just can't make it without the zucchini.

Ratatouille

What you need:

• 1 large eggplant
• 2 zucchini
• 1/2 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 9 or 10 small tomatoes
• 8 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• basil
• thyme
• marjoram

What you gotta do:

I actually took more steps in this than are absolutely necessary. I was also apparently vibrating when I made this because nearly all of the pictures are blurred by movement. But, it's stew, it's not like I need to show detail.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Chop the eggplant, zucchini, onion, and pepper into fair sized chunks, about 1 inch cubed. You can peel the eggplant if you want, but it's not necessary. I partly peeled mine. The colour is nice to have, but I find the skins can be tough sometimes.

Put the veggies in a large baking dish along with 6 of the garlic cloves, whole, and drizzle a few table spoons of olive oil over them.

See what I mean? Fuzzy.

Toss the oil and veg together so that they're all just barely coated with the oil.

This is the only perfectly clear picture of the night.

Roast the veggies for at least 30 minutes, then take them out, stir them, and poke at them to see if they're done. They should be tender, on the way to being soft, but not mushy. They may need another 15 minutes in there. Mine did.

But that's okay, because it gives you time to make the sauce.

So, yes, you could just put the tomatoes and herbs in the baking dish and do it all in one pan. But you don't have quite as much control over the moisture level that way. And most of the moisture is going to come from the tomatoes. I wanted a very thick stew, not at all soupy, so I did my tomatoes on the stove top in a small pan.

First though, chop them into chunks about the size of the rest of the veggies and remove the seeds and pulp. That part alone gets rid of a fair amount of moisture.

Chop the garlic, and chiffonade the basil as well.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a shallow pan. Drop in the tomatoes and garlic and let them cook for a few minutes. The pan should be hot enough that the tomatoes sizzle as soon as they're in, and they should stay bubbling the whole time. It won't take long for the tomatoes to lose their shape and turn into something resembling a thick sauce.

Once they have, add the herbs.

Three pictures of the damn sauce and this is the clearest one. I gave up.

Basil is apparently some kind of faux pas in ratatouille because it's considered too Italian for this French dish, which I totally don't understand because it is considered a "herbe de Provence" like the thyme and marjoram are. Lavender is too, and while I have some in the cupboard, I'm saving it for a fabulous dessert.

By the time the tomatoes have cooked down, the veggies should be done.

Pour the tomatoes over them, then add about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

Okay, the blur in this one might be my fault, because I was pouring and picturing at the same time. But still! That's amazingly fuzzy, even for me.

Gently stir this all together. The veggies should be able to hold their shape as they're being coated by the tomatoes and vinegar.

I know, it seems a little odd to be pouring vinegar into a stew, but it gives the sweet veggies a bit of zing.

Serve with some crusty french bread, or some garlic toast with mozzarella.

If that's not too Italian for you. (seriously, where do people come up with this shit)

You can serve this with rice, or noodles, or as a side with chicken. Me, I'd rather eat it with a spoon. I also want to try putting it on the garlic bread and baking the mozzarella on top of it...