Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Ratatouille
*I got this recipe from Smittenkitchen.com
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided
1 small eggplant
1 small zucchini
1 small yellow squash
1 long red pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper
softened goat cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
Pour tomato puree in oval baking dish (I only had square so that's what I used). Dropped the garlic cloves and onion into puree. Stir in 1 Tablespoon olive oil. Season the sauce generously with salt and pepper. Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash.  Trim the ends off the red pepper and cut out the core, leaving the red pepper intact like a tube.  Slice the vegetables into thin slices (approximately 1/16 inch). Arrange the cut vegetables concentrically on top of the tomato mixture starting with the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping vegetables so a small part is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a few handfuls leftover that do not fit.  
Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the vegetables and season generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs by running your fingertips down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the vegetables.
Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper that has been cut to fit the inside of the dish.  (THIS is the hardest part of this dish). Bake for approximately 45-55 minutes until the vegetables have released their liquids and are clearly cooked but still hold their structure. They should not be brown around the edges and you should see the tomato sauce bubbling up around them. 
The original recipe suggests serving with a little softened goat cheese, but I think it is really good by itself!
 So pretty!
 Cutting this parchment paper to the correct size was the hardest part of this dish.
I used the extra sauce I had and it was a little too much. 
But it tasted really good!

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