I was up late at night as usual, just surfing the web and I came across a recipe named ratatouille’s ratatouille (you know… it’s the ratatouille the “chef rat” Remy made on the animation with the same name.  Anyway, I tried this recipe and I was pleasantly surprised.  If you’re a vegetarian you’ll love it.  If you’re not you’ll love it anyway…

I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/

Here the recipe and pics.

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
1 longish orange 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.  I made a couple of changes to the first step.  Instead of the above, I poured the tomato puree into a pan with the garlic, olive oil, onions, added some Italian seasoning with salt and pepper and left it to simmer for 15 mins. It made a delicious sauce.  Either way works though.

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.  Once prepared, should look something like this.

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, with a salad, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain or pasta.  Bon appetit!!

Thanx Smitten Kitchen.