Zombie Party!

It was the zombie apocalypse in our house for Izzy's birthday.  We had a zombie cake, zombie games and zombie movies.  The cake was yellow cake mixed with green and pink food coloring and then baked in bowls to make the zombie heads.  We covered the cakes with frosting and then made modeling chocolate, which if you have never done it before is so much easier than I thought.  The headstone and the green zombie were made with white chocolate chips and the shrunken head and zombie hand were made out of milk chocolate chips

Modeling Chocolate
30 ounces white or dark chocolate chips
1 cup of corn syrup

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and stir until smooth, mix in the corn syrup and then beat until stiff, it will look like chocolate play dough, which is really fun just to use for play dough if you want your kids to get super wired from sugar.  We colored most of the white chocolate green with some brown streaks.  Allow the chocolate to cool completely but seriously do not refrigerate, it will get rock hard. Kneed dough for a few minutes before rolling out to cover the cake.  use the scraps to mold eyes, lips etc...

The Headstone was pretty easy, we just mixed in some black food coloring and kneaded it until it was streaky like marble and then carved the names in the headstone and used food coloring and a paint brush to add detail.

We covered the board with melted modeling chocolate... I put the scraps in the microwave for a few seconds too long and it melted and formed a greasy mess, which wasn't good for anything except oozing melted zombie parts...

RAT PATOOTIE

Izzy, Inara and I absolutely love the movie Ratatouille.  The best part is when Remi makes ratatouille for Ego. The colorful layers of zucchini, tomatoes, summer squash and eggplant complement each other beautifully;   the recipe looked so good that we had to find it.   We researched where they got the idea from, and lo and behold the inspiration for the dish came from one of my absolutely favorite cookbooks “The French Laundry” by Thomas Keller, owner of the “French Laundry” restaurant in California.  We made our own version of the dish with basil, olive oil and layers of vegetables which I sliced thinly on the mandolin Inara bought me for Christmas (thanks kiddo).  The Keller version comes with a roasted red pepper sauce that I think we will give a shot next time we make it.

Our version

1 small zucchini

1 small summer squash

1 tomato (heirloom if you can find it)

1 tbs fresh basil paste (in the produce isle)

 salt and cracked black pepper.

 Extra Virgin Olive oil

Small ramekins (like for crème brulee)

Slice all the veg including the tomato very thinly using a mandolin or if you have kick butt knife skills use a knife (show off!)

Spread a thin layer of the basil paste in the bottom of the ramekin, now layer in a circle zucchini, squash, eggplant and tomato, repeating the layers, see picture.  Spray or drizzle with olive oil cover lightly with a piece of parchment paper or foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes until the tomato starts to give off its juices and the oil is bubbly.  You can serve in the ramekin or carefully turn out onto a plate. Drizzle with roasted red pepper sauce or add some olive oil to any extra basil paste you have left, steep for a few minutes then strain through a cheese cloth, you should have very bright green oil… drop around plate in fine dots.