$2 Ratatouille

The middle of summer at Pocket Square Farm brings an abundance of tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, and zucchini.

At the same time, my book club just finished reading a wonderfully prosy, autobiographical cookbook. It is entitled A Homemade Life, and is written by Molly Wizenberg, author of the noteworthy blog Orangette. If you like to cook, and if you like to eat, I highly recommend it as an easy read. You'll want to keep the book on your kitchen shelf for years to come, and it will inevitably get splashed with olive oil, salted, smeared with tomato sauce, and perhaps even singed a little, so buy this one at your local bookstore--and forego the public library.

The first recipe I made from this book (with help from my two little sous-chefs) was Roasted Eggplant Ratatouille (rat-e-TOO-ee), simply because I had [almost] all the ingredients growing in my garden. I figure that altogether this filling summer meal cost no more than $2 to feed my whole family dinner, plus left overs. The only ingredients I had to buy or use from my pantry were the olive oil, onion and garlic (I'll grow these next year), two eggs, 1 bay leaf, and a pinch of salt. In her book, Molly Wizenberg expounds the virtues of sharing recipes, so I hope she won't mind that I shared hers with you here. After all, I did plug her blog and book.

Ingredients:

1 lb. eggplant, sliced crosswise into 1-inch-thick rounds

Olive oil

1 lb. zucchini, trimmed, halved lengthwise, sliced into 1/2-inch-thick half-moons

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 large bell pepper, any color, seeded and chopped

4 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced

5 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped

3/4 tsp. salt

3 springs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 c. finely chopped fresh basil

Directions:

Position rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

Arrange the eggplant rounds in a single layer on rimmed baking sheet. Brush a few tablespoons of olive oil onto the eggplant; flip slices and brush the other sides as well. Bake for 30 minutes, flipping slices half way through, until soft and browned on each side. Remove from oven and let cool, cut into 1-inch pieces, and set aside.

*Painting the eggplant rounds with olive oil is a good job for little hands.

Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep skillet. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and just tender, 10-12 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet again, reduce the heat to medium, add the onion and cook until softened, 4-5 minutes. Add bell pepper and garlic and cook until tender, about 6 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, salt, thyme, and bay leaf and stir to combine.

Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 5 minutes. Add the eggplant and zucchini, stir to incorporate, and cook until everything is tender, about 15-20 minutes more. Discard the bay leaf and stir in basil.

I served this meal with a fried egg on top and homemade french bread for dipping. Yum!