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| The pasta is super white, it is a gluten free quinoa/rice blend |
So I absolutely adore eggplant...but for some reason I rarely cook with it! Why? I think I've had some negative experiences in the past - so I might be a bit intimidated by it. Let's just say a recipe said to salt the eggplant but never mentioned wiping the salt off. It's pretty sad to bite into a beautiful looking piece of eggplant and have to spit it out because it's pure sodium.
Anyways, I felt inspired to make a ratatouille. Little did I know that I would be entering a world of historical controversy. After reading countless recipes, each one arguing for their method, I knew I just had to go with what sounded like a balance between ease and deliciousness. So disclaimer: I do not claim that this is in any way an "authentic" ratatouille. But it is absolutely delicious.
In the end I wrote down the ingredients and methods for 5 recipes and I took the parts I liked from each. So I guess I created my own! Here it is!
1 lb eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 medium zucchini, cut into half moons
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 bell peppers, cut into short strips
3 tomatoes, chopped (maybe take out the cores if they're hefty)
8 cloves of garlic, give or take (the recipes I looked at ranged from 2-15 cloves)
basil (I picked some from our garden and forgot to measure! A good handful I'd say, or 1/4 c - thinly sliced)
1 tsp salt and a dash of pepper
1/4 c oil
1.5T red wine vinegar
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (you can come pick some from my front yard if you're in the area!)
Optional: I added 1 can of garbanzo and 1 can of white beans to make this a complete meal
To serve: Put on your favorite pasta or rice, spread on toasted bread or on pizza, or serve simply as a side dish.
Amazing hot, room temperature, or cold!
For the veggies, the size of the pieces isn't critical. This bakes so long that everything cooks down. The eggplant becomes like butter, the tomatoes release their juices - it's all perfection.
Cooking Instructions
I added all the veggies (minus tomatoes) to a baking pan with the oil and s&p and cooked for 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Stir the vegetables a few times and rotate the pans once as well. I actually started everything out in 2 baking pans and then condensed it to one as everything cooked down. You want them to be tender but don't let them burn. Condensing them helps prevent that (but leaving them spread out initially lets them get nicely browned first). Then add the tomatoes and cook another 15-30 minutes (let them soften). Add your beans, if desired, and cook another 10 minutes. Finally stir in the basil and vinegar ~ and you're done!
Summary (estimates) :
Veggies (40 min, stirring) + Tomatoes (15-30 min) + Beans (10) + Basil/Vinegar
These cooking times are all estimates. You really just want enough time for everything to cook down and all the flavors to mingle. It should look like a big pile of mush (#appetizing) and smell incredible. Enjoy!
