Yesterday evening, I wanted to make a quick and easy dinner after my book club. Inspired by the beautiful dispaly of winter veggies at Whole Foods, I decided on a stovetop ratatouille, with eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and a bit of canned tomatoes (I hate buying fresh in the winter). However, I find that sauteeing eggplant is one of the more arduous processes in cooking, one that absorbs all the oil in pan, leaving precious little for the other vegetables. My alternative – a slow-cooking method that cooks the eggplant separately from the zucchini and squash, which require far less cooking time. All are brought back together when the tomotoes, oregano, thyme, and s&p is added. This in turn sits and stews in a covered pan for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I was a hungry girl. I didn’t get home until after 9, and dinner wasn’t getting into my belly any time soon. So, I decided I needed a little something something to snack on while I was waiting. One of my favorite combinations is mushrooms with nuts (or sausage, but that can be a bit decadent…), so I pulled the i-need-to-be-used-or-i-will-go-bad package of button mushrooms out of the fridge, chopped them up using my recently acquired knife skills, and threw them into another skillet over medium heat. As they browned, I cut my garlic into little brunois and added them to the pan – I have a hard time cooking sans garlic. I then grabbed the can of walnuts from my pantry and chopped them up coarsely. Into the mix.

As the flavors began to come together, I realized the texture wasn’t. I wasn’t looking for a crumbly mess to top my little baguette rounds, so I poked my head back into the fridge and saw a little spoonful of mascarpone (pron. mas-car-pon-ay, a personal pet peeve, if you couldn’t tell) left over from a tart I made a few weeks ago. The perfect bind, with its creamy, light consistency and slightly tart flavor. Once ready, I dumped all of the ingredients into my Cuisinart with a bit of kosher salt, deafened myself momentarily as I hit the pulse button, and then transferred the mix to a serving bowl while I waited for the toast points to toast up. It spread beautifully onto the bread, and the flavor was woodsy and nutty with a crackle of salt (I sprinkled some extra grains on top for good measure). So delicious that I ended up licking the bowl.

And with that, dinner was served.