Month: April 2016

ratatouille | The Lush's Blush blog
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A beautiful ratatouille

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Homemade ratatouille

I confess that my husband and I are not the healthiest of eaters. We like fried stuff, preferably topped with cheese and bacon. But sometimes you just have to eat your veggies!

If you’re going to eat veggies in abundance, why not also make it beautiful.

A few weeks ago my sweet husband made us the most beautiful vegetarian meal. It was so lovely we almost didn’t want to mess it up by serving it. But we did, and it was delicious. I confess that we did add a little cheese though!

The real trick to making this dish so beautiful is having patience to layer the vegetable slices. I imagine it would taste just as good though if you forgo the precise design and just dump them in the dish.

So here’s how to make

Morgan’s Beautiful Ratatouille

Ingredients

  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves minced
  • 1 can tomato paste
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 yellow squash, thinly sliced
  • 1 eggplant, thinly sliced
  • 1 zucchini, thinly sliced
  • 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
  • 1 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
  • olive oil
  • fresh thyme
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Combine chopped onion, garlic, tomato paste and water in a large casserole dish. Place thinly sliced vegetables in a rotating pattern atop the sauce. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Cover with parchment paper and bake for one hour at 350 degrees. Serve with pasta if desired and sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

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Fresh veggies gleam with olive oil just before heading to the oven to make a delicious ratatouille.
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Cooking

Aunt Grace’s Lemon Pound Cake

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Easter Dinner | The Lush's Blush blog
Easter Dinner
We had a wonderful Easter dinner a few Sundays ago. We prepared all the traditional southern favorites, ham, green beans corn, creamed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, ambrosia salad and pound cake for dessert.

As a kid I don’t remember thinking pound cake was all that special. It didn’t have fancy icing, maybe a glaze, but sometimes not even that.

Now that I’m an adult, or so they tell me, pound cake is one of my favorite desserts. No, it may not be fancy and I actually don’t even put a glaze on mine, but there’s something about it that just tastes like home.

The recipe I always make was given to my Mamma by her Aunt Grace. Both Mamma and Aunt Grace are no longer on this earth with us in body, but I sense their spirits always. And especially when I make this cake.

Great Aunt Grace’s Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients

  • 3 cups cake flour
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 6 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups Crisco
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 tbsp lemon flavoring

Directions

Cream sugar and Crisco together. Add eggs one at a time. Add salt and baking powder to flour and sift together. Add flour mixture and milk to batter, alternating between the two and mixing until combined. Add flavoring. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Lemon Pound Cake | The Lush's Blush blog
Aunt Grace’s Lemon Pound Cake