Recipes

[brenkworth]

Here's the ratatouille recipe I love which is so easy. Gazpacho
recipe to follow:

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.