Ratatouille Recipe

This past weekend, Alice the Cook and her assistants were busily preparing food for the villiagers at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.  Keep in mind, each weekend during the run, I prepare enough food to feed 85-120 people each day.  It’s very hard work.

On Saturday, we prepared Kielbasa Stew and Ratatouille.  Since Ratatouille is not in either of my cookbooks, many of my fans asked me to post it so that they can recreate it at home.  I took the recipe and recalculated it for a more personal setting.

Ratatouille is a French peasant dish that has been around since the 11th century in one form or another.  Below is a more modern interpretation of the recipe.  I hope you like it.

Ingredients:
1 medium sized onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium or large eggplant, diced
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 medium zucchini diced into large chunks
2 medium yellow squash, diced into large chunks
add herbs as desired (try basil)
olive oil (enough to sauté onion/garlic)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until tender.  Add the eggplant and tomatoes and bring it to simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the zucchini and yellow squash and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are tender and remove from the heat.   Stir in the herbs and let sit to cool a bit for 10 minutes before serving.  This will allow the herbs to add flavor to the dish.  For my recipe this past weekend, I added several button mushrooms that were diced for more flavor.

NOTE:  Avoid copper or steel pots when making this dish as the tomatoes will absorb the acids of the tomatoes.  I prefer using a well seasoned cast iron pot, but you may have other seasoned pots that you may use.

This recipe can be served over rice, pasta, or potatoes and can be served hot  or cold.  I hope you enjoy it.