ratatouille, c'est bon, no?

when you have a garden and find that you have zucchini, tomatoes, bell peppers, herbs and eggplant coming out your ears, this is a fabulous way to use a bunch at a time and cut down on your surplus. even if you don't have a garden but your friends do, they won't notice a few missing vegetables... or you can go the honest route (boooring) and buy them at the farmers market.

the name ratatouille comes from the french word for "mix" and was previously used as a familiar term for any stew. this recipe follows the traditional version, with each ingredient being fried separately before the final simmering.

my photo doesn't do this dish justice, i had to use what i had on hand which did not include a yellow pepper or eggplant, so i threw in an extra zucchini. although not french, we like to top ours with a healthy dose of parmesan cheese, which as we all know, makes just about everything better. i served it with pine nut & apricot couscous.

4 tomatoes
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 eggplant, diced
2 zucchini, diced
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 bay leaf
3 thyme sprigs - left on stem
2 basil sprigs - left on stem
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped parsley


score a cross in the top of each tomato, plunge into boiling water for 20 seconds and then peel the skin away from the cross, chop roughly.

heat the oil in a frying pan (i used my le cruset dutch oven and felt oh-so-french). add the onion and cook over low heat for 5 minutes. add the red and yellow peppers and cook, stirring for 4 minutes. remove from the pan and set aside.

fry the eggplant until lightly browned all over then remove from the frying pan. fry the zucchini until browned (depending on your pan, you may want to deglaze it with a little white wine before starting the eggplant or zucchini, just so the browned bits on the pan don't get too dark and make the dish taste burned) and then return the onion, peppers and eggplant to the pan. add the tomato paste, tomatoes, sugar, bay leaf, thyme and basil, stir will, cover and cook for 15 minutes. remove the bay leaf, thyme and basil.

mix together the garlic and parsley and add to the ratatouille at the last minute. stir and serve.

serves 4.