Ratatouille

So, I don't know if any of you have been wanting to try Ratatouille since seeing the move but I certainly have. I finally made it the other day and I loved it! Adam and Ammon did not care for it, but Lily and Anna did. Also, my mother-in-law was up this weekend and tried some and she loved it too! Maybe it's a girl thing? So, if you decide to try it you can follow the recipe I used or follow the link to see her pictures, she also has some other tasty looking recipes. I would maybe use 1/4 of an onion and 1 clove of garlic instead of the 1/2 onion and 2 cloves. I have looked up several recipes in the past, but this is the closest to the movie's. Most others serve it like a stew with the veggies chopped but this recipe serves it sliced, just like in the movie and I personally think helps with the flavor. I only used 1/4 of an eggplant, 1/2 zucchini, 1/2 yellow squash and most of the red pepper. If you can find a small skinny eggplant it would work better. I had to use two or three slices of squash and zucchini over each eggplant slice to cover it because it was so large. Also, with the bell pepper, you can use red or orange. I made it twice this week, once with red and once with orange and they were both good. I end up just laying three slices of pepper on top of the zucchini because it wasn't working to layer like the recipe said. I also used dried thyme instead of fresh. I used an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, not tomato puree. I served mine with couscous, yummy, but a messy choice with children. Warning, it will make your breathe stink! It is worth it to me though! It is super easy and really tasty, but does take a little bit of time to cut the veggies. http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille (As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen)
1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced

1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)

1 smallish zucchini

1 smallish yellow squash

1 longish red bell pepper

Few sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.
Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.
On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.
Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.
Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.
Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)
Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.