Ratatouille.  What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say that?  Is it a cute little gray mouse? Me too!  I honesty can’t recall ever even having heard of that food dish until Remy introduced it to me.  However, I was under the false impression that it was difficult to make.  Maybe it’s just because it was so darn impressive that said mouse could cook  or maybe it was that leering food critic that subconsciously intimidated me.  Either way, I have since learned that a fresh and simple version of this popular dish can be oh-so-easy and fast to make!

All you really need is some fresh veggies and a few minutes prep time.  Tell you what, you can even just mix up the sauce, dump it in the bottom of the baking dish, and layer your veggies on top.  Really!  Dump and go recipes are some of my favorites!  My favorite part?  That it is impressive looking when it’s done and has an equally impressive name.  It looks like you put a lot of time and effort in, even though you didn’t! It can be our secret.

 

 

I did the sauce first and just stirred it up with the seasonings and crused the stewed tomatoes a bit more before dumping it in the baking dish.  Honestly, this recipe is really light on the sauce because what I am looking for when I eat Ratatouille is some fantastic, stand-alone vegetables.  I prefer it more like a lovely baked salad.  However, I know some people prefer more tomato sauce with their Ratatouille.  Are you one of them? Simple, add two cups tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes instead of stewed tomatoes.  You will get a lot of savory sauce in your end result.

After dumping the sauce in the baking dish you slice your vegetables then stack them in on their side in a pattern.  Whatever pattern you want, honestly it doesn’t have to be perfect.  I did eggplant, tomato, zucchini, onion here.  If you want your vegetables to be more uniform in size you can be choosy at your grocery store when you select the variety, or you can just slice the larger vegetables in half so they are comparable in size.  (This time I sliced the eggplant and onion rounds in half.)  Honestly though, they don’t have to match.

 

 

Isn’t it a beautiful rainbow swirl?!  Now you just drizzle it with olive oil then stick it in the oven and voila! Done!  I was very impressed with how such a simple dish could taste so fantastic.  My hubby is even a huge fan.  This recipe fed us both (and my toddler) comfortably, but if you are feeding a larger family or have guests I would recommend doubling the recipe.

recipe slightly adapted from A Clean Bake