Ratatouille

What do you do when a farm gives you tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and fresh thyme? Make ratatouille, of course! I have a special place in my heart for the dish after watching the movie and dressing up as the little chef for screw, so when faced with this combination of fresh-picked produce, there was only one thing to make.

I bookmarked this recipe at the beginning of summer and am glad to actually make it before the winter squash season settles in completely. It's a slightly fussy recipe since it (again) requires all the veggies to be cooked separately first but it's definitely worth doing since cooking them in batches allows even browning, which adds to the dish's flavor considerably.





In an effort to use fewer fresh tomatoes and save them for a future pizza, I decided to supplement the dish with a can of stewed tomatoes, which ultimately turned out to be a mistake since it masked the more subtle flavors of the fresh vegetables. So even though the dish came out really well, I would have loved to taste the ratatouille made with only freshly-picked veggies. But even despite the strong tomato flavor, you can definitely still appreciate the amazing produce. The eggplants had a wonderfully tender, almost creamy, texture and the peppers were so flavorful and totally unlike the watery ones you get at the supermarket. Plus, it's just such a pretty and colorful dish!