Ratatouille

Bon jour from Mama Lanette! As a grand finale to the first week of Feeding the Freaks, I am
challenging Alyssa JoJo’s Vegetable Tian with Ratatouille. When she first told me about her
Vegetable Tian recipe, I was like, “Yeahhhh….that jut sounds like Ratatouille was given a fancy
pants name if you ask me…” Thus was born our first cook off.

Ratatouille is a French dish made from eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and
garlic, and featured in a very popular animated film (wink, wink, to those of you with children).
It is an especially economical dish to prepare during late summer in Minnesota, as zucchini and
eggplant are quite plentiful at your local farmer’s market, along with tomatoes and peppers. If
you are a lover of all that is vegetable, as Mama Lanette is, you will love Ratatouille. If you are
 somewhat skeptical about eggplant or zucchini, it may not be the dish for you. The S.O.B won’t
get within 15 feet of either no matter what I tell him they are, thus his freshly-honed, Rainman-
like skills for differentiating cucumbers from zucchini in salad. There are many variations of this
dish, so I pulled together the elements I liked best from several recipes and created something
new and hopefully tasty. It was a little more work than some of the other recipes I found,
where the entire dish is made in one pot, but I am always up to a challenge and am hoping the
presentation makes the extra effort worth it! Taking the high temperatures of Minnesota in
late August/early September into consideration, however, the one pot method may be more
desirable, as heating the oven (and by default, the house) is not required. Enjoy!

(read below for my update after making the dish)

Ingredients
1/2 pound zucchini, scrubbed, and sliced into 1/8-inch slices
1/2 pound eggplant, scrubbed, and sliced into thin (3/8-inch) slices, about 4-inches by 1-inch
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound thinly sliced yellow onions
1 sliced green bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 small bay leaf
1 pound ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, juiced, and sliced into strips
½ to 1 cup shredded fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray two cookie sheets with olive oil or vegetable oil spray. Put the
zucchini and eggplant slices on the cookie sheets. Brush very lightly with olive oil, and bake until
slightly brown on each side.


In a skillet, cook onions and peppers slowly in 2 tablespoons olive
oil for about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic, bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in tomatoes
and basil. Cover and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. Remove the cover and cook
at medium to high heat until juice is reduced.
Remove the bay leaf and discard.





 Put 1/3 of tomato mixture in the bottom of a casserole. Arrange 1/2 of the eggplant and zucchini on top,then half of the remaining tomato mixture. Put the rest of the eggplant and zucchini down,and
top with the remaining tomato mixture. Drizzle with olive oil top with salt and pepper. Cover
casserole dish and bake at 400 for approximately 30 minutes. Let rest before serving so the
dish has time to set. Serve with a crusty French bread and good butter!

Variations:
Top with cheese such as goat cheese, parmesan, or whatever you have handy and like the taste
of.
Use yellow squash in addition to zucchini.
No basil? Use parsley!

The Final Verdict: The presentation was so NOT worth the extra effort. While this dish was
delicious, the three separate steps of roasting, sautéing, and baking really made it a pain
in the ass. I don’t have a dishwasher, so the extra dirty pans were not appreciated. I also
do not have central air, so turning on the oven and stove when it is 94 degrees with 80%
Minnesota humidity in my standing-fan-only ventilated kitchen really pissed me off. What was
I thinking?!? Presentation? Who cares when it is so freaking HOT outside! Like I don’t have
better things to do with my life on a Friday night than chop vegetables and roast to death?
Thank goodness for my icy cold pal Mr. Riesling or I may have simply overheated and passed
out (from the heat, not the Riesling…shut up you, and you know who you are). In reality,
Alyssa JoJo’s Vegetable Tian looked much better in presentation, and her recipe sounded much
simpler. Don’t get me wrong, my Ratatouille really was delicious, and I especially enjoyed
eating it in front of the S.O.B. He despises eggplant and zucchini, and watching his gag reflex
kick in always makes me giggle. I think this is a recipe that needs to be revisited in the one pot
version…perhaps next summer.

So, to end the first week of Feeding The Freaks…A Family Fiasco, the coveted Flying Freak Flag
goes to…*drum roll*… Alyssa JoJo!!!!! Job well done my pookie boo! You made more with less,
and that is always a win in Mama Lanette’s opinion. See you at next week’s fiasco, my fellow
freaks! Au Revoir, Mama Lanette