Roasted Garlic Mustard

I'm a firm believer in making things from scratch when it's practicable to do so. But only when the homemade version tastes better than the store-bought version. (Let's be real, homemade ketchup is never going to beat out Heinz, amirite?) But making things yourself has a lot of benefits. Sometimes it can be cheaper. Also, you avoid eating all the random chemicals and preservatives that are found in commercial products. And making stuff at home is actually really fun.

This whole-grain roasted garlic mustard was my project for the weekend. (Joe, on the other hand, did some pickling, which he's really into these days. Perhaps a pickling post is in order?) It was completely easy and well worth the trip to the health food store to pick up some bulk mustard seeds. This is going to be awesome on sandwiches and wraps, as a dip for chips and pretzels, and in salad dressings and marinades.

Roasted Garlic Mustard
Adapted trom Eating Well (I cut the recipe down, as the magazine version made 8 cups -- this makes 1-2)

• 1/2 cup whole yellow mustard seeds
• Scant 1/4 cup whole brown mustard seeds
• 5/8 cup cider vinegar
• 3/8 cup water, plus more as needed
• 1 head garlic
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1-2 T pure maple syrup (to taste)
• 1 tsp salt

Combine mustard seeds, vinegar, and 3/8 cup water in a large bowl; cover and let stand at room temperature until the liquid is mostly absorbed, at least 6 hours (or overnight).

About an hour before you're ready to make the mustard, preheat oven to 400 F. Rub off the excess papery skin from garlic without separating the cloves. Slice the tip off the head, exposing the cloves. Place the garlic on a piece of foil, drizzle with oil and wrap into a package. Place the package directly on the oven rack and roast until the garlic is very soft, about 45 minutes.

When the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze about a quarter of the cloves out of their skins into a blender. (Squeeze the remainder of the cloves into a small container and save for other uses, like soups and pasta sauces; the roasted garlic will keep in the fridge at least a week.) Add the mustard seed mixture to the blender and pulse, stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary and adding water by the tablespoon as needed to facilitate blending, until some of the seeds are coarsely chopped and the mixture looks like grainy mustard. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in maple syrup and salt.
 
Spoon the mustard into a jar and refrigerate. It'll keep in the fridge for about a month.

Fontina and Roasted Eggplant Pita Pizzas

I'm not entirely sure how to classify this recipe. It's extremely easy, but it's not quick, since it requires 45 minutes of roasting vegetables. However, if you've already got the vegetables roasted -- say, from having this the day before -- making leftovers couldn't be quicker.

One thing is clear, though. This recipe is super delicious, and the way it makes your house smell while the garlic is roasting simply cannot be described. Oh, man. So amazing. It'll make you want to roast garlic every night of the week.

 Fontina and Roasted Eggplant Pita Pizzas

• 1 medium red onion, sliced into thin rounds
• 1 medium eggplant
• 1 bulb (note: not clove) garlic
• Cooking spray
• 2 large wheat pitas, split in half crosswise
• 1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup fontina cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 450 F. Coat a sheet pan with olive oil cooking spray and spread onions on it; set aside. Prick eggplant all over with a fork. Coat garlic bulb with cooking spray; wrap in foil. Roast eggplant (unwrapped) and garlic (wrapped in foil) until very soft, about 45 minutes. Add onion to oven for last 20 minutes of roasting. Remove vegetables from oven and reduce temperature to 400 F.

Peel and mash eggplant; set aside. Squeeze garlic from its skin. Set pita rounds on a baking sheet and spread each with some garlic. Top with tomato sauce, eggplant, fontina and onions. Bake until crisp on the edges, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Ratatouille's Ratatouille

First things first: I must give credit where credit is due. This wonderful recipe came from one of my very favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. I have made it many times and each time I love it more and more. Huge thanks also go to Joe, who actually assembled and prepared this meal for us to eat tonight. (He has these few weeks off work, and let me tell you, having a house-husband is awesome.)

It should come as no surprise, given my love of Pixar, rodents, and food, that Ratatouille is one of my favorite movies. I simply adore the scene towards the end where the titular rat prepares a beautiful dish of ratatouille -- not the traditional peasant style stew, but a gorgeous haute cuisine version (developed in real life by Thomas Keller). And the food critic is transported and has a revelation and all ends well, of course, since it is a children's movie.

This is pretty much that dish. I don't know if it's exactly how Mr. Keller himself would have prepared it, but it is so intensely flavorful with the fresh vegetables and the thyme and the garlic that I just don't know how it could possibly be any better.

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille

• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
• 1 cup canned tomato puree
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 small eggplant
• 1 smallish zucchini
• 1 smallish yellow squash
• 1 longish red bell pepper
• Few sprigs fresh thyme
• Salt and pepper
• Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving
• Orzo, couscous, polenta, crusty bread, or some other grain, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Pour tomato puree into bottom of a baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil, and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube. On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them. Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop orzo, polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.