Ratatouille and other farm-style delicacies

It's one of those cozy, rainy autumn afternoons meant for curling up by the fire with a good book. Everyone must have felt it, for it was a slow day at the store, and Merritt and I did just that--sat by the store's wood stove with our books. I convinced him to try a George MacDonald, The Fisherman's Lady, and I had a fun read in Who Gets the Drumstick? by Helen Beardsley.

Then I got to come home, feed the chickens (who love the mud and the rain), laugh at the kitties (who try to delicately shake the mud from their feet each step they take), light all the candles, and make dinner for my husband who will soon be home from work. (Meanwhile, I'm keeping one eye on the fields in case a buck should present himself as steak for our winter's dinners.)

Tonight I'm trying Bortsch (beet and cabbage soup) for the very first time, as well as making my mother-in-law's standby sausage and potatoes (a simple white sauce and sausage gravy over mashed potatoes) in case Merritt doesn't like the Bortsch.

As the end of a second season on the farm draws to a close, I'm realizing how much living off the bounty of the garden has taught me about cooking. I thought I cooked from scratch before. I may have grown up with a few Costco or Schwans prepared dinners in the freezer to fall back on in emergencies, but I knew how to grind wheat, bake bread of all kinds, and make lasagne (sauce and all). Now I'm making salsa with tomatoes, peppers, and onions I planted, and cilantro from my pot outside the door. Not only is the beef in the enchiladas from our cows (I grew up on our own beef and venison), but my husband farmed the alfalfa hay that fattened those cows up. And the vanilla and honey baked custard is made with eggs from our own chickens and ducks.

But more importantly, I'm learning to cook according to what's in season. This spring it started out with cream of spinach soup and broccoli casseroles with green salad. (And this pregnant lady's favorite keep-away-the-nausea snack eaten at least twice daily, of a tortilla smeared with cream cheese, layered with spinach and salsa, and rolled to perfection.)

As soon as the first little summer squash showed itself, we had squash and zucchini with every meal (sauteed in a cast iron skillet with just a dab of butter, salt and pepper). My favorite summer lunch was an "open-face sandwich", with some of my sister-in-law's homemade bread, toasted, buttered, and topped with bacon, onion, tomato, and cheese, then broiled just until the cheese browned--I could get fat on those!

The week the peppers and tomatoes came into profusion, our favorite Mexican meals began showing up frequently in the menu. My latest experiment was winter squash enchiladas, with a sauce of pureed winter squash, garlic, and jalapeno instead of the traditional tomato sauce. (While I didn't grow up with it, I have become a fan of winter squash in every way, shape, and form!)

But the one farm-style delicacy I didn't get to try this year was Ratatouille. My mouth has been watering ever since we saw the movie by the same name at the drive-in. I came home and dug through all my cookbooks, very proud to find that my non-gourmet cookbook library had several versions of the recipe. And upon reading the ingredients, I found out why the movie characters were so scandalized at serving such a "peasant dish" to the gourmet food critic: the primary ingredients of Ratatouille are zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant! There were never any eggplant to spare this summer, but I've convinced Mom and Dad to plant a few eggplants again next year just so we can make Ratatouille.

Maybe you can always find eggplant and zucchini at the grocery store. But there's nothing so gourmet as food straight from the garden. And nobody eats better than those who live off the land, eating what's in season, and preserving the abundance for winter.

(written autumn of 2007)