recipes {ratatouille}

i have to admit, ever since watching ratatouille as a kid, i have been so curious to know what this dish would taste like. i know it is a bunch of veggies, but in the movie, & yes i know it is a cartoon, it just looks so good! so to keep with the french theme of mark's birthday back in february, i made this side dish!

i had a lot of fun making this dish. i used a mandolin to slice all of the vegetables & it took about 5 minutes to go through an eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper. hello, FAST! you can use a really sharp knife instead of a mandolin, but if you use a knife you most likely won't get a consistent thickness. once all of your veggies are sliced you can really be creative & layer everything however you'd like. it did take a while to layer all of the thinly sliced vegetables but it came out looking so pretty! this is definitely a dish to make if you want to impress your guests & get a few compliments :)

what you'll need >>
recipe adapted from smitten kitchen
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 cup crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1/2 egg plant
1/2 zuchinni
1/2 yellow squash
1/2 red pepper
a few sprigs of thyme
salt & pepper

directions >>
1. preheat oven to 375.

2. using a round baking dish, about 9 inches, pour tomato puree in the bottom of the pan. add onions, garlic & 1 tbsp of olive oil. salt and pepper generously & mix gently to combine.

3. trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. trim the ends off of the red pepper & remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

4. using a mandoline, or a very sharp knife, cut the veggies into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

5. on top of the tomato puree, arrange slices of veggies 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.

6. drizzle remaining tablespoon of olive oil on top of the veggies and season generously with salt and pepper. remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs and roughly chop them. then sprinkle over the veggies.

7. bake for about 45-55 minutes until veggies are cooked but not totally limp. the tomato sauce will be bubbling up around the edges.

8. serve on top of a grain with a dollop of goat cheese or as a side dish with a yummy protein!

happy friday, y'all!

i'll take you to the doughnut shop

growing up in a los angeles suburb, krispy kremes were a rare treat for most people in my community. there wasn't a krispy kreme store close by, so little mom & pop doughnut shops were where we got our saturday morning doughnuts from...oh, & on the rare occasion, a quick before school treat ;) but since i've moved to utah i have found the complete opposite to be true! if i'm in the mood for a doughnut then i will typically make the 5 minute trip the the local krispy kreme store...when i first got here i loved having those melt-in-your-mouth treats so close by, but it is now 4 years later & i am kind of over krispy kreme {yes, i said it}!! i just want my NORAML doughnuts back!

so, i did a little search for local doughnut places & decided to try some out. {what a hard job, right?} these beauties are from a place called beyond glaze in draper. aren't they just the prettiest doughnuts you have ever seen???? i almost didn't want to eat them because they were so fun to look at. but that thought quickly passed & i dove in!

^^^ i was so close to getting the maple bacon but decided i would come back with mark & we could try it together ^^^

i would give this place a B+ because they cost double what normal doughnuts typically cost & i thought the they looked better than they tasted. but i only tried one...if i go back then i'll take a couple bites from a few different ones & maybe do an update if i need to :)

what are you favorite guilty pleasures?????

life lately {iphone edition}

well, hello there march! 

february went by so fast! here is a little look back on some of our adventures last month. i often forget to take pictures of the day2day stuff...i will work on that! this month was full of baking, eating, hanging with friends, mark's birthday & helping with a wedding!

another birthday around here

& this time it was the man of the house's big day! 

^^^confused & then excited about the mini wad of cash he recieved

{i might have had sort of a hard time with his gift this year...so, money it was!}^^^

^^^not the cutest candles, but they sparked a bit & it took mark a few attempts at finally getting them all to blow out^^^

mark celebrated his 28th birthday on saturday! he started off his day with a nice long, 4 hour GMAT class which ended around noon. {who wouldn't enjoy that, right?} then he decided it was cake time. this cake wasn't my proudest moment, but when the birthday boy requests funfetti from a box then that's what you make! i wanted to get tall, cute candles but all i could find were these horrid black sparklers. so forgive me for the slanted, creepy candles. :) it was fun watching mark try to blow all of them out, though.

he spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing while i slaved away in the kitchen making a french inspired meal. mark lived in paris for 2 years so i thought it would be fun to have some "french" food. i made a whole roasted chicken, ratatouille and homemade baguettes. totally my idea of what french people eat :) and everything turned out delicious! {recipes to follow!}

around six mark was picked up by some buddies & they headed out to wendover, a mini-ish vegas a few hours away from salt lake, for a late night of gambling! it was his day & i was happy to encourage him to have fun with his friends! although, it had been snowing really badly earlier in the day & i was a bit nervous about their drive. but they arrived safely, had a blast, mark didn't lose any money!, and they got back into town around 4am...crazy boys! & what did i do while he was gone you ask??? well i ate a few more slices of cake & watched back to back lifetime movies, what else? i am too predictable! ;)

it was a hectic day for the both of us, but so much fun!
hope you had a HAPPY BIRTHDY, babe.