Camacho Watcho

When the weather turns cold, I turn to comfort foods. One comfort food that I love in particular is Ratatouille. Last winter as I randomly flipped through my Moosewood Cookbook, I came across this recipe and decided that is the perfect recipe for curling up on cold day in front of the fire.

When the weather took a turn for the worse a couple weeks ago, I headed straight to the kitchen and whipped up a batch. Fresh eggplant, zucchini, onion and bell peppers mix with garlic, herbs and canned tomatoes to simmer into a tasty, hearty stew that is sure to warm the soul. That first night I served it with polenta, then I ate it straight up the next day for lunch. Now, I love leftovers, but at that pace we were going to be eating Ratatouille for a good couple of weeks. The recipe says it serves 4-6, but with hearty sides like potatoes or polenta, it goes a lot further than that. With this in mind, I decided to use the leftovers (about half of the original batch) and turn it into lasagne, layering it with tomato sauce, cottage cheese, and lasagne noodles and finishing it off with fontina cheese. It turned out gooey, rich and fantastic!

The original recipe below is from the Moosewood Cookbook. There are variations for spicier versions, but the only variation I choose to indulge in is to add Kalamata olives at almost the end of the cooking time. Any excuse to add olives is perfect for me! My sister also served up some yummy Ratatouille while I was visiting her this weekend – she served it with mashed potatoes and farmers market sausages. Yum! I will definitely be serving mine with sausages next time.

Ratatouille
Moosewood Cookbook
3 TBSP olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic
2 cups chopped onion
1 bay leaf
1 medium eggplant, cubed
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. basil
1 tsp. marjoram or oregano
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 medium zucchini, cubed
2 medium bell peppers, cut in strips
fresh black pepper
1 14 1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes
Optional: 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives

Heat olive oil in a deep skillet or Dutch oven. Add garlic, onion and bay leaf and saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add eggplant, salt and herbs, and stir. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes or until the eggplant is soft. Add zucchini, bell peppers, black pepper and tomatoes. Cover and simmer for about 10 more minutes, or until the zucchini and bell peppers are tender. Voila!

Tags: Food, recipes

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.