Ratatouille on Repeat

Ratatouille is a dish I've been wanting to try to make myself forever. I mean, it just sounds cool doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so. This weekend, I had bought a boatload of veggies from the market, so I decided to go for it! (With a bit of help from Will of course...)

Mid-Summer Ratatouille
Adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe in his book How to Cook Everything
Ingredients:
-1 medium eggplant
-4 small/medium tomatoes
-3-4 small summer squash
-1/2 large purple onion
-1 green bell pepper
-A couple of leaves of basil, chopped
-About 1/2 cup of olive oil
-Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place cast iron stock pot in oven to warm. Use a mandolin or your awesome knife skills to thinly slice all the vegetables so they are all about the same size.
2. Pull the warmed stock pot out of the oven and swirl a couple tablespoons of olive oil on the bottom. Add the veggies in layers (whichever order you like!).
3. Press the veggies down in the pot. Add the chopped basil, S+P, and the rest of the olive oil. Bake for up to an hour until the veggies are softened and nice and bubbly.
We served ours up with toasted pita spread with goat cheese. Yum!

Now that I had lots of leftovers from that big pot of ratatouille, I spent the rest of the week packing them in my lunch... in jars. :-)

Oatmeal in a jar, now ratatouille in a jar! I just have to come up with a dinner to cook/eat in a jar! :-)
In other news, I'm looking forward to this weekend! Will and I are going on a mini-vacation to Branson, MO. His sister and her family are going to be in the area so we are driving out to meet them and head to Silver Dollar City amusement park on Saturday. Fun times. Woot, woot. Hope ya'll have had a wonderful week!