Hi All –

Wow, Sunday night’s dinner was a success… but let me recap the rest of the day first.

Katherine and I had a fun time watching Julia Child on pbs.org (link here to episodes on the web!)  The episodes were inspiring and I can’t wait to try a few of her recipes.

It is hard to watch Julia Child cook when you are hungry! I really wanted to make an amazing omelet for lunch – but since I had eggs last night and pancakes this morning, I decided to make a beautiful salad for lunch.  The salad consisted of spinach, tomato, red pepper, cucumber, tuna, a few croutons, and a drizzle balsamic dressing (less than a tablespoon).  It looked very pretty and it was filling due to the fiber and protein.

Here is my beautiful salad:

Along with the salad I had three small pieces of the Seven Star french baguette from yesterday with half of a wedge of ‘light’ laughing cow cheese.

After lunch I went over to see my friends Tim and Nicole.  Tim and I played about a half hour of tennis – it was definitely the best tennis I had played in years!  I guess I had a lot of aggression to get out on the courts – it was a lot of fun!

Later in the day I started the ratatouille. There was a lot of chopping involved!  I love chopping and prepping vegetables.  Here is the link to Jacques Pépin’s recipe for Ratatouille.  I made a few alterations (I am never one to follow recipe’s completely, as you might realize by now). My alterations were using 1 1/2 Japanese eggplant and 1 1/2 small zucchinis and one sort of larger than normal cubanelle pepper… I used two entire cloves of garlic and exactly two cups of onions (like the recipe calls for) the onions definitely had me tearing up today! I also added an eight ounce can of 100% natural tomato sauce because I think I had more vegetables than the recipe called for – and I definitely want some left overs for the next couple of days!

Here is the Ratatouille while on the stove:

The ratatouille cooks for 30 minutes and then you are supposed to bring it down to room temperature.  But because I live in the real world and needed to eat before 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, I served the mixture while it was still hot…. I almost feel guilty – but the recipe simply tells you to heat up the ratatouille again once the pasta is ready… so I just made both of them so they would be ready at the same time.  Here is what the final plated dinner looked like along with the garlic bread my mom put together:

Whole wheat rotini pasta, ratatouille and freshly grated parmesan cheese.   I rarely put parmesan cheese on my pasta, I am not a huge fan and I think it is really strong and can be overpowering.  But a little bit (a teaspoon or less maybe?!) was a nice touch.

I definitely had seconds tonight!

The meal was very beautiful and reminded me a bit of what it was like eating in France when I was there.  Ratatouille is a vegetable stew in Provence and is served on its own most of the time.  I definitely could eat this as a stew – but I also loved it over pasta.

I hope that you have had a great weekend. I’m off to make my Sunday night preparations for my uber early Monday morning. Wish me luck!