“Rat Patootie”

If there are any die hard Disney fans reading, did you catch it? “It sounds like “rat” and “patootie”, rat patootie! Which does not sound delicious.” (Disney’s Ratatouille, 2007).

May not sound delicious, but as is the case in the movie, I discovered that Ratatouille is indeed delicious!

You’ll never guess what was in my CSA box… yep, eggplant! It’s starting to grow on me (but hopefully it’s almost done growing for the season… hopefully). But I think the person packing my box this time was thinking Ratatouille because there was also zucchini, summer squash and bell pepper, all common Ratatouille ingredients. So really, I had no choice!

From my online reading, Ratatouille is a French stew. It is often made and let to simmer until the cubed vegetables soften and more or less become one. Then served as a side dish. Well that didn’t entirely work for me. First of all, this approach was not going to result in something that looked like what is served in the Disney movie and I was really banking on that as a tool to get my daughter to try it. Second, if I was putting in the time to make this look like a Disney movie, I wanted a whole meal, not just a side so in comes some andouille sausage (drool).

First thing I learned while making this, there is value in the right size pan, which I apparently don’t own for this particular dish. To have the concentric appearance from the movie, I started with a 9” round casserole. When I finished layering that and still had a mountain of sliced veggies, I added a 11”x7” baking pan. And we are still having stir fry with the lesser mountain of left over sliced veggies.

As I mentioned earlier, the end result was indeed delicious! Served over couscous and topped with a touch of shredded Parmesan. At least in my opinion. Despite letting my daughter watch the movie while I was making this, we still had a battle over trying this new dish. She did end up eating 8 slices of the “colored zucchini” and most of the sausage off of my plate. Overall, mama is happy she tried it.

Ratatouille

1 Japanese eggplant, thinly sliced

1 summer squash, thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

8 oz andouille sausage, sliced into rounds

2 cups tomato sauce (recipe follows)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Tomato Sauce

4 to 5 tomatoes, cored (I used a variety of garden tomatoes from my CSA box)

2 cloves garlic

½ red onion, chunked

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp oregano

Dash red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

For the Sauce: Add all ingredients to a blender, process until very smooth

For the Ratatouille: Preheat oven to 375°F

Pour tomato sauce into bottom of large baking dish (I believe a 14.5” oval dish for concentric pattern would work or a 9”x13” rectangle to do lines would be great too. It is probably possible to layer the sliced vegetables closer together than I did, allowing more to fit in a smaller pan)

Line the top of the sauce with the vegetables and sausage in a continuous pattern (i.e. zucchini, eggplant, summer squash, bell pepper, sausage, repeat) starting at the outside of the pan and moving inward to the center (or left to right if using a rectangular pan). There will most likely be vegetables left over

Drizzle olive oil over the top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with thyme leaves

Cover with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside the pan. You want the vegetables to cook through without browning

Bake in preheated oven until vegetables are tender, about 45 – 60 minutes

Serve with couscous, brown rice, or crusty bread

Adapted from The Comfort of Cooking

Does this happen to anyone else? When you set your laptop up next to a platter of homemade chocolate chip cookies, do they disappear?