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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Anti-recipe #36 variations on ratatouille

Yes, I got the idea for making this from the movie. We watched it at Family Camp (outside on a sheet up against the farmhouse with a video projector, cousins all snuggled in blankets, perfect really).

So when I came home with a basket of summer bounty from my mom and sister's giant-asss country gardens I thought hmmm, roasted vegetables on pasta? I flipped through my favorite cookbook ever, just to get an idea of cooking temperatures and herbal seasonings for roasting veggies,and next to it I saw the recipe.

Ratatouille.

Yes. I totally have to make that.

I googled around a bit to get an idea of different ways to make the dish. It seems as long as eggplants and layering of summer veggies are involved it equals ratatouille. Well, I had no eggplant. But I did have the largest zuchinni you have ever seen. Two of them. That should work, right?

One recipe I found had mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and eggplant. First you saute the eggplant in garlic chunks and olive oil, until soft, then stack layers in a dish and cook at 350 until all the veggies are soft. In between each layer this recipe called for a sprinkling of sea salt and parmesean cheese.

Well, I didn't have those veggies. I did have the huge aforementioned zuchinni, summer squash, and plenty of tomatoes. I also only had what we call "shaky cheese," the generic Kraft parmesan cheese.

Eggplant or no I wanted to make it. So, this is what I did.

Sauteed the zuchinni, sliced thick (1/4 inch) in garlic salt (no real garlic in the house) and olive oil until soft. Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil at the bottom of my baking dish (an 8 inch round dish). Layered this, tomatoes (didnt seed and peel but should've), onions (chopped thin), fresh basil leaves (what I have growing in my yard, you could do parsley too, fresh, if you have it), summer squash (peeled and seeded) with a light sprinkle of sea salt and parmesan cheese in between layers.

Bake for about an hour, pressing down on the top to squeeze layers together. (I also dumped out some juices in the end because it was super juicy.)

Serve hot or room temperature. I served ours on top of buttered garlic noodles with fresh sage and basil chopped up.

The result?

Umm, it was DELICIOUS. (Although I would recommend going easy on the olive oil, I think I drizzled too much and it was quite rich.)

Here is Julia Child's recipe if you are interested in the classical preperation, as well as the other one I found with parmesan cheese, both of which I do want to try.

Totally won over.

1 comments:

  1. yum! (pluse i appreciated the "mom and Sister"!
    deffiantely trying this!

    ReplyDelete

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