Ratat what?

Have you ever seen the movie Ratatouille? It's a movie than any of us wanna be chefs can relate to. I feel as though I am Remy many times as I master different recipes. For a while now, I have wanted to make ratatouille, and what better time than summer time? If you don't know what this is, it is a classic peasant dish from France. Comfort food made from veggies. Basic idea: take a bunch of summer veggies, squashes, eggplant, tomato...well you get the idea. You cut them all up and bake it. It's like meatloaf but with veggies. There is an issue with the this classic dish- NO MEAT. So, I decided I would add some. Flash back to a few days ago, my buddy Tom and I meet at 7's (a small bar in Beacon Hill), we meet there often after work and split a pitcher, usually two. I told Tom of my want to make ratatouille, but how it involved no meat. As we finished the first pitcher and waited for the second, I tossed out ideas to my foodie friend. Beef? Chicken? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: BACON! *SIDE NOTE* For those that just started reading my blog, you may not know but I have a bacon addiction. So what would be a good way to use the bacon to its full potential? It was like the angels spoke to me: "Bacon Pesto." Bacon what? "You can't do that!" people said, "it's just not right." All I can say to them is: Suck it! With a quick change in recipe, I made what may have been the world's first Bacon Pesto.

WHAT YOU NEED
almost pound of bacon, enough to get 1/4 cup bacon fat
handful basil, about 20 leafs
handful walnuts
1/2 cup Stilliton blue cheese
1/4 cup olive oil, I found a scallion infused olive oil at Russo's that worked great!!

Cut the bacon in to one inch squares. Slowly render the fat off the bacon in a cast-iron skillet on low heat. Every so often, empty the fat into a measuring cup. When done, put the bacon aside to use in the ratatouille. In a pestal and mortar, just grind up the basil. Add the walnuts and blue cheese, and keep grinding into a paste. Add the bacon fat and olive oil. And there you go! You have bacon pesto. And what do you do with bacon pesto? Well, I replaced the pesto with most of the olive oil that you would use in the ratatouille. This dish is real easy to make.

WHAT YOU NEED
Now there is no true recipe for ratatouille, it is comfort food use what ever you want this is what I used
eggplant
summer squash
golden zucchini
cousa squash
red pepper
yellow pepper
orange pepper
onion
tomato
bacon
yam

Pre-heat oven 375. Slice all the veggie with a mandolin. Make sure to slice the yam thinner than the rest, as it take longer to cook. After that, in a cassarole dish, start layering the veggies. I did yam, golden zucchini, layer of pesto, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper, summer squash, cousa squash, eggplant tomato, pesto, bacon, onions, pesto, repeat. I made sure to have the bacon in the middle and only did that step once. Cook for 55 minutes. When it was done I let it rest for five minutes and made a plain couscous to serve with the dish. Voila! A French classic made the Dan way. The bacon, which I cooked until cris,p came back to life and was a little chewy. But it did give its flavor to the dish.

The wine that I picked with this meal is a special one. While waiting to talk to Frank and Ray at Pairings in Winchester, I noticed they had a Pinot Meunier. Pairings is a cute gourmet wine shop in Winchester. Lorie and Ray started the store about a year ago and have a great shop. I have bought spice, herbs and cheese from them before (I bought the blue cheese from them for the Bacon Pesto). Pinot Meunier is famous for being one of the three grapes used in Champagne. I have never seen one in a still wine, I didn't even know they grew the grape in Oregon. So Saturday when I went back to conduct a wine tasting I had to buy a bottle of the  Willa Kenzie Estate Willamette Valley Pinot Meunier. This wine is great, a little pricey at $29 but then again it's not a grape that you can find in your normal liquor shop, let alone a fine wine shop. This bottle had great berry fruits (cranberry, blueberry and raspberry), a hint of earth and spice with a nice touch of dried roses. It has more acid than you would get from most wines but along with the silky tannin it helps to balance the fruit. This is a wine that I don't expect to find again for a while and that is sad.

In life I find it more fun to change the recipe and find wines that you are not going to always find. Most people would find a recipe online and would follow it to the letter. Me, I like to treat cooking more like an Art than a Science. True artist can't truly be taught to make a masterpiece it comes from within. I add things that I think could make the meal different, if not better. It may not come out great all the time, but sometimes you really knock it out of the park, i.e. BACON PESTO. Same with wine. Why always drink the same thing? Why care about how many points someone else thought the wine should have? Experiment, have fun, enjoy life. Break down the box that you are in and start living life.