Oven – Baked Ratatouille
To be honest, until about a month ago, I had no idea what this dish consisted of but ever since that cute little mouse mastered the dish I couldn’t get it out of my head!
Mom has an amazing garden in her backyard and showered me with vegetables the last time I was visiting. Which was awesome considering I was in San Francisco for 2 weeks and came home to empty cabinets and banking account…
I am also excited about this recipe because it is made of 90% homegrown ingredients (minus bell pepper, onion, and garlic)!!!!
Found this oven-baked version in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. I chose this method because, hey, convenience is key here. The toughest part is the chopping (as usual) but that’s it folks!
1 pound eggplant, sliced 1/2 inch thick and salted if time allows
1 large onion, sliced
1 medium zucchini, trimmed and cut into large chunks
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded, and sliced.
1 round tomatoes, cored and chopped
10 cloves of garlic, halved
Fresh herbs. I used fresh basil and oregano out of my very own patio garden. Mark says you can pretty much use any of the savory herbs.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
In addition, if you have potatoes and/or mushrooms you can throw those in, as they are the most common added ingredient to ratatouille, but Mark says any vegetable will do great in this recipe!
Here is the beautiful array of vegetables pre-oven 
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. If you salted the eggplant, squeeze out extra liquid, rinse and dry.
Film a casserole dish with a couple tablespoons of the olive oil, then layer the vegetables. I did onion, eggplant, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, salt and pepper, and the garlic. But then it didn’t matter because you drizzle the remaining olive oil over it all and swish the veggies around a bit.
Bake for about 1 hour, pressing down on the vegetables occasionally with a spatula, until they are all completely tender. When they are tender remove.
Garnish with more herbs and drizzle a bit more olive oil, if you please. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
I boiled a few shrimp tonight and threw them in the mix. It was delicious!
Enjoy this easy, healthy recipe!
I love this one! Yum! It looked so yummy on the movie too haha
I want to make it…but the husband *hates* it.
Maybe I’ll make it and call it casserole?
when i cook at home, i always make sure that i only cook healthy recipes because i don’t want to get fat ..`