Summer is the time to enjoy the harvest. I decided to make a vegetable stew with some of the vegetables I found on my recent trip. This stew is inspired by ratatouille but makes use of what I had. It also doesn't make use of what I didn't have, notably the green peppers that are a traditional ingredient of ratatouille. This one includes onions, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and tomato puree. The result has a good garden taste and is very filling. I must admit that I do miss the acrid note of the green peppers.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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