RATATOUILLE PANCAKES- AN EASY AUTUMNAL SUPPER

Courgettes

“What’s that?” asked a certain daughter disapprovingly, as she lifted the lid of the casserole containing a bubbling mass.

 “Lunch!” I replied, enjoying the rich aroma’s escaping round the kitchen.

“Oh great, you want us to eat it? What with?”

The conversation felt horribly familiar.

When they were little I used to make savoury pancakes, some with ratatouille, as they wouldn’t eat it on its own, and others with cheese and ham. It was a great way to get lots of veg into reluctant little ones. I thought we had moved on from that now they are teenagers.

So guess what we had for lunch?

Savoury pancakes with ratatouille!

 Followed by sweet pancakes of their choice.

I have to confess it has taken me a while to be able to eat ratatouille again after over dosing on the stuff in my early twenties. It was cheap and easy to make and one Autumn I ate it every week, on its own, with couscous, pasta....in lasagne..I was broke, very busy and the veg was cheap in the market.

More recently, since I had a garden and the space, I have started to grow veg; beans, courgettes, tomatoes, peppers. However this year, despite my care and attention the crops have been non-existent.

Sadly not a single courgette.

The rest of the family are quite relieved that I’m not trying to be self sufficient or anything like that, as we’d be starving already.

 My green fingered neighbour Jo, who is my garden guru, hasn’t had much luck either, and blames the weather. That cold wet summer. Thank goodness we have good veg shops nearby! These are from Jo's garden.

Courgettes from Jo's vegetable patch

courgette flowers

The great thing I think about ratatouille is its versatility. You can have it on its own. It can be used as the filling for lasagne, as a pasta sauce....the options are endless. Even with fillets of pork for the meat eaters of us.

At the right time of the year, ie now in the autumn, it is also really cheap to make. So is a great thing for young students or those of us on a budget.

The quantities in the recipe below allow enough to fill pancakes for 4 plus some left over a small 2 person lasagne or pasta sauce.

Ratatouille pancake

Ratatouille PANCAKES

Serves 4

Preparation time 10-15 minutes

Overall start to eating: 30-40 minutes

INGREDIENTS FOR RATATOUILLE:

1 aubergine

1 red or orange pepper

1large onion

4 courgettes

4 cloves of garlic

Large tsp of mixed herbs

3 400g tins of chopped tomatoes, plus half a tin of water as well.

 INGREDIENTS FOR PANCAKES:

4oz plain flour

A pinch of salt

2 eggs

10 fl oz -275 ml- milk

A little oil for frying

A handful of Grated cheese is optional but very delicious sprinkled on the ratatouie before you roll the pancake.

WHAT TO DO:

1.     Chop all the onions and aubergines first, and lightly fry in a large pan.

2.     Whilst these are cooking chop the peppers, garlic and courgette and add to the pan stirring until the vegetables soften, this takes a couple of minutes.

3.      Add the mixed herbs and tins of tomatoes then transfer into a casserole dish and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

4.     Now get on with the pancake mixture. Put the flour and pinch of salt in a large bowl and add the egg mixture and start whisking.

5.     Gradually whisk in the milk until everything is combined and the mixture is smooth.

6.     Let this stand whilst you wash the pans then heat some butter or oil in a medium frying pan.

7.     When this has warmed ladle in some pancake mix- it should cover the base of the pan but not be too thick. Let this cook for a minute or two.

8.     When the mixture starts to bubble up gently the pancake is ready to turn, or flip, depending on how confident you feel.

9.     Continue making the pancakes until all the mixture is finished. You should have about 8 depending on the size of the pan!

10.                        Now put the ratatouille in a line in the middle of the pancakes add cheese if you want, roll and eat.

Ratatouille pancakes

 If you want to prepare these in advance place the filled rolled pancakes in an oven proof dish, sprinkle with cheese and then place in a warm oven to keep warm or reheat.  That’s what I did as you can see in the photo above.

Bowl of ratatouille 

Lots of left overs for another day!

COOK ONCE EAT TWICE

Courgettes

“Why haven’t you posted anything this week?” a friend asked recently.

I started to talk through the list of what I’d been up to, how I hadn't cooked anything exciting, just lots of cook once, eat twice supper’s.

She looked rather confused until I explained it involved cooking enough for two different days. Cook once eat twice is always a bonus when you’re busy. 

It’s my ideal type of cooking. 

A little forward planning and you have straight forward, healthy wholesome meat and veggie meals for not much effort. 

The real joy is that you’re not eating exactly the same thing two days in a row.

 That has to be a winner.

This week we’ve used the good old staples, beef mince, and quorn for the Teen Veggie. From this we’ve had spaghetti bolognaise and stuffed courgettes.

With the ingredients below we have feed 4 of us, (3 meat eaters and 1vege) for two days plus left overs.

You can prepare both mince pots simultaneously as it is easy, just keep the pans separate!

MINCE AND QUORN BOLOGNAISE

Preparation time 5 minutes

Cooking 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

500G mince beef

100g Quorn mince

1 onion ¾ in mince ¼ in veggie

1 red pepper

3 carrots - 2 in mince 1 in veggie

1 Courgette

4 cloves of garlic- 2 for mince 2 for veggie

1 tin tomatoes- you might want an extra 1/2 to make it go further

4 tsp Tomato paste – 2 in mince 2 in veggie

Slug of red wine(optinal)

5 pinches mixed herbs- 3 in mince 2 in veggie

You need two fying pans and two casserole dishes or saucepans

WHAT TO DO:

1.     Peel and chop all the vegetables (onion, pepper, carrots, garlic)

2.     Heat a small slug of oil in two frying pans and add the quorn to one and the mince to the other and let brown slightly.

3.     Then add  ¾ of all the veg to the mince and the other ¼ in the smaller pan with the quorn.

4.     Stir the browning meat/quorn until tender and the vegetables are soft.    

5.     Add the wine if using, mixed herbs, and the tomato puree.  Next stir in the tomatoes then transfer into the casserole dishes and let simmer for 45 minutes.

All you need to do is cook up some spaghetti and serve.

Quorn

Courgettes

Stuffed courgettes

Preparation time 5 minutes

Cooking time 1 hour at 170 degrees

INGREDIENTS:

4 courgettes

Mince and quorn already cooked as above

40g bread crumbs

1 packet of Mozzarella

Salt and pepper

Grated parmesan to serve

You need 2 oven proof dishes.

WHAT TO DO:

1.     Preheat the oven to 170degrees. Slice the courgettes length wise and scrape the insides out with a teaspoon about 1cm deep.

2.     Lay the courgettes in the dishes..2 halves in one small dish the other 3 halves in a larger dish.

3.     Spoon the quorn mixture and mince mixture into and around the courgettes and then sprinkle with the bread crumbs

4.     Chop up the mozzarella and scatter over the breadcrumbs and season with salt and pepper.

5.     Cover with aluminium foil and place in the oven for one hour.

Courgettes stuffed with Quorn

When cooked grate parmesan over the dishes and enjoy.