Sunday, August 16, 2009

Roasted Ratatouille - One Local Summer

It being zucchini season, among other things, we are in that perennial hunt for "what is one more way we can use zucchini?" One of my favorites is ratatouille and we'd had it a couple weeks ago. But, I had found a slight variation in the Moosewood "Simple Suppers" cookbook recently. They suggest roasting the vegetables instead of cooking them on the stovetop. So, that's what I tried Sunday evening. It's the usual assortment of late summer vegetables, with some olive oil and salt and pepper - but roasted in the oven for close to an hour at 450. When serving, a bit of chopped fresh basil is added. It was delicious, sweet and rich tasting as is often the case with roasted vegetables. We had the ratatouille with a small London Broil steak cooked on the grill and a piece of wheat nut bread, with whole wheat, walnut chunks, flax and millet - from New Seasons' bakery.

zucchini, tomatoes, basil - our garden
eggplant, peppers, onions - Deep Roots Farm, our CSA
steak - New Seasons Pacific Village beef



The ratatouille - Before....



during.... (stir periodically during the roasting)



and after

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That pan of vegetables looks so delicious. I agree, roasting is one of the most flavorful ways to cook veg. Even in dishes that don't call for it, I'll try it at least once as a cooking method if possible - it almost always is delicious. I've even roasted the potatoes before for potato/leek soup, its an entirely different depth of flavor.