Well, to jump right in: it was a great succes! I promised myself to never ever make ratatouille any other way because it looked so great..! Until I looked at the clock: it took almost 2 hours! (including oven time and wine-breaks with the bf, but still!)

Now, I love spending time in the kitchen. It relaxes me. Probably because things usually go exactly the way I want them to go. One of my favorite quotes from the movie Julie&Julia (another must-see if you love to cook, and eat!), is: “I love that after a day when nothing is sure, and when I say “nothing” I mean nothing, you can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. It’s such a comfort.” And that’s exactly how I feel about cooking.

So really, I don’t mind to spend 2 hours on a meal, but some people just want to eat something – fast- because they are really hungry. As was the bf. We’ve been together for quite some time now, so he knows that when I get in a cooking frenzy, all he can do is be patient. Which he is. Accompanied by a bag of crisps.

But back to the results! If you were hoping for an exact replica of the picture I posted yesterday, then you are out of luck. But to be honest I think I did a pretty good job..

This is how it looked before I placed it in the oven. Looks great, doesn’t it? I think it does!

But I won’t keep you waiting any longer: Here’s the recipe:

Ratatouille:
Ingredients for 4-5 persons

Sauce:

• 1 red pepper (and to avoid any confusing: I mean paprika)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, diced (I love garlic, and use it a LOT. Feel free to adjust to you own taste)
• A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
• One 14 oz. (400 grams) can of diced tomatoes. (Obviously, you can dice fresh tomatoes if you prefer. I just didn’t have enough so I used canned tomatoes)

Vegetables:

• 1 large aubergine, finely sliced
• 1 large zuchinni, finely sliced
• 4 large tomatoes, finely sliced

Vinaigrette:

• Olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic (yay, more garlic!)
• Your own selection of herbs (I just used parsley and thyme)
• Freshly ground salt and pepper

Preperation:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C (or 360 F, if you will). Halve the pepper, place in a small oven dish and grill in the oven for 30 mins, until the skin has blackened. After removing them from the oven, place them in a plastic bag, and allow to cool. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan, add the onion and garlic, and let soften. Meanwhile, peel the peppers and finely dice them. Add this to the saucepan, as well as the diced tomatoes and thyme. Fry everything, then turn down the heat and let it simmer.

Sidenote: At this point I suddenly remembered my mom used to make a version which included curry powder, and I always really liked that version, so I decided to add a little curry powder. It  is, of course, completely up to you whether you do the same, or not.

If you prefer the sauce to be smooth rather than chunky, then blend it. Once again, this is optional. I did blend it and it does look a bit more refined. Taste your sauce, add salt and pepper to your liking, stir well and then turn of the heat, allowing your sauce to cool.

Meanwhile prepare the vinaigrette. This is pretty easy: blend everything: and you’re done!

Transfer the sauce to a baking dish. Add the vegetables, placing them in a circle or a square or whatever, depending on what shape your baking dish is. Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables, cover your dish with aluminum foil and place in the oven (still 180 °C) for an hour. The last 10 or 15 minutes, remove the aluminum foil.

Enjoy!

I love the colors in this dish!

I ended up serving it with bulgur, some lemon zest and crumbled up feta cheese. Accompanied with a nice Merlot, it really was a treat!

Looks even better on my plate..