Thursday, May 17, 2012

Le désordre grillé

Confession time.  Sometimes, as I sit at my desk at 4:30 on Thursday afternoon, typing up a monthly statistic report or pulling my hair out over our budget....I miss high school.  When the worst thing in the world was a pop quiz or "forgetting" your homework.  When you got to leave everyday on time.  When gym was actually a "class" and not a stolen 30 minutes during the day.  When a hot lunch cost under two bucks and you got to play Euchre with your friends for a half hour (yeah, I was a cool kid.  We had fun, though!)
On thing I don't miss (besides, ironically, math class)?  Foreign languages.  I don't know what your requirements were, but we had to take 3 years of a foreign language, with the option of 5.  (Incidentally, I had to take another class in college because I opted for the 3 years and they changed the SUNY requirements JUST after I left high school...lame).  Ahem.  Sorry.  In my high school, you could take either German, Spanish or French.  Well, everyone in the world took Spanish (which would have been smart).  German is just not a pretty language (yes, I am half German.  It doesn't mean I need to like the language).  But French?  Well, for an aspiring ballerina (ahhh, unrealized dreams!) French sounded good.  After all, I would be ahead of the game because I'd spent 10 years hearing french ballet commands, right? 
Or not.
I was pretty terrible at verbs.  Imperatifs.  Masculine and Feminine (Why is a female cat masculine = le chat?  Who knows).  The language made no sense to me.  Not that English does, but adaptation comes in to play.  One thing I did rock at?  Vocab.  Pamplemousse=grapefruit (such a freakin cool word for a fruit).  Champignon= mushroom. Ratatouille?  Well, technically it's not really a word.  But it does come from "touille", which means, 'to toss'.  And tonight, as I stared at the contents of my fridge, I saw some veggies that needed tossin'.
Instead of firing up the stove, though, I decided to use the grill to make "Le désordre grillé"....a grilled mess :-)
 Grilled Ratatouille (serves 1 or 2)
1 eggplant, sliced lengthwise
1 onion, peeled
10 stalks asparagus
2 chicken sausages (I used Zweigles)
2 zucchini, sliced lengthwise
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. basil

Chop eggplant, asparagus and zucchini.  Wrap peeled onion in aluminum foil.  Grill veggies and sausage for 10-15 minutes, or until soft (onion may need a bit longer).  Chop veggies into bite sized pieces, toss in bowl with seasoning.  Heat tomato sauce (I nuked it, I'm not proud) and mix with veggies and protein.
Super simple.  And super yummy. Served alongside crusty French bread, this was the perfect weeknight spring meal.
C'est Délicieux!
Take that, Mme. Cierici (former french teacher :-P) 

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