Ratatouille inspired by Remy

There's a scene in the movie Ratatouille in which the food critic Anton Ego takes one bite of the chef's special, ratatouille, and is instantly transported back to his childhood, coming indoors after a fall, or perhaps being bullied, sniffing back tears, to be offered a hot bowl of love from his mom in the form of ratatouille.

Around here, Ratatouille is one of our favorite movies around here. Jake loves to watch it and I love that it reinforces one of our favorite activities: cooking.

We started cooking with Jake as a way to keep him occupied and to keep an eye on him while we're busy in the kitchen. It's easy for us to jump to conclusions and say our 3 year old loves to cook, but realistically, he probably loves it because its something we all do together. I hope that cooking will always bring back fond memories for him of family, just like Remy's Ratatouille did for Ego.


Ratatouille’s Ratatouille
Recipe found on Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:`

• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
• 1 cup tomato puree (stick 4-5 Roma tomatoes in the food processor and grind)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
• 1 smallish zucchini
• 1 smallish yellow squash
• 1 longish red bell pepper
• Few sprigs fresh thyme
• Salt and pepper
• Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.
• Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.
• On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.
• Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.
• Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.
• Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)
• Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
• Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.

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