Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Ratatoulie

I watched Ratatoulie a few weeks ago. I didn't know what it was and decided to replicate a cartoon dish without look at any recipes. This is what I came up with:

I thought it would be thinly sliced squash with the same sized round pasta cooked in a tomato sauce.

Sliced two different kinds of summer squash with dehydrated soy curls. I thought it would look pretty alternating them.
I sprinkled the rows of squash/soy curls with garlic and soy cheese.
I then filled in the gaps between rows with cooked round pasta and smothered it with pasta sauce, more garlic and soy cheese on top. I cooked it for about 20 minutes.
Served with fresh cracked pepper. It didn't look as great as I wanted it to when I put it on my fork, but it tasted great!

One thing I really enjoyed about the movie was this hard, tough as nails, food critic melting at the idea of being served a dish he grew up with. Food is so emotional and it brings up memories of all sorts - something that VeganMoFo is good for. I love the simple flavors of dishes - vegetables and herbs are my usual way to go. This cooked pasta dish was much better than the normal boiled pasta with wet sauce poured over. Baking the dish really helped absorb the flavors.

(One thing I didn't like about the movie was the female chef mentioning that it's hard for females to get ahead in the field unless they are with a male head chef. (I do like they addressed this issue in the movie.) Even with the character mentioning this, she still went ahead and hung herself on the arm of this rising male chef (who couldn't really cook).)

In other news: I've taken photos of waffles, risottos, rice, salads and random other foods which Mr. Bolsh's camera just isn't capable of taking photos of the awesomeness. I don't know if I can wait until the insurance money kicks in to replace my camera. What type of camera should I get? What do you have? What do you wish you had? I loved my Panasonic with the Lumix lens so I am thinking of getting, basically, the same camera.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your ratatoulie looks delicious! I loved the shot of the alternating squash colors...nice touch!

Courtney

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Oooh, tasty!