Saturday, April 9, 2011

Pretty Ratatouille

Last night, I went to the CSU, Chico AIGA unofficial potluck (wow, that's a mouthful). Up until yesterday morning I had no clue what I was going to bring. If you are one of my long-standing readers, then you'll remember the Rosemary Couscous I made for the last potluck. That went well, but I wanted something different.. and something healthy. The more I scoured the web for healthy potluck recipes, the more I realized- there aren't many. Most potluck recipes have some kind of starchy carb like rice or noodles, or are a meat dish... which I really wasn't up to making. SO, as I was searching the internet I decided to watch a movie. I looked over at my shelf of DVDs and what stared back at me? Pixar's Ratatoullie. Horray! I'd found my inspiration.



For those of you who aren't familiar with this film (or the dish), Ratatoullie (the food) is a French stewed vegetable dish. I've seen many recipes for it, all normally including some form of tomato, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and sometimes bell peppers. For the majority of the recipes, the veggies are chopped in rustic chunks... which is delicious, but in my opinion, not always very pretty.  I wanted to make something visually striking, so I decided to make Ratatoullie dish like I'd seen in the film.

Pretty Ratatoullie
You'll need
1/2 c tomato sauce
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
dried rosemary
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1 small eggplant
2 tomatoes (or 1 red bell pepper)
1 tsp olive oil
2 1/2 tsp fresh thyme 
garlic salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ยบ.
Add the chopped onion and garlic to the tomato sauce. Stir it up and pour into the bottom on an oval baking dish (mine was about 91/2" long). [Garlic] salt and pepper liberally, and add a bit of the fresh thyme.

Now, cut the zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and bell pepper (or tomato) into very very thin pieces.




Then, arrange the vegetables in the baking dish all stacked up against each other, starting on the outside and working around.... until it looks like this:


Drizzle the olive oil on top of your masterpiece, and then [garlic]salt and pepper liberally. Toss on the remaining thyme and cover with a piece of parchment paper that is approximately the size of the baking sheet. Put it in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the tomato sauce is bubbling up and the vegetables are tender and lovely. It should end up looking like this little beauty:


It was eaten up by my lovely designer friends at our potluck. I thought it was quite yummy, and will definitely make it again soon!

foodie foodie!

1 comment:

Five to Nine Foodie said...

Looks totally delicious. Looking forward to having some this summer when you can cook all of our meals!