Recipe Weekend: In Honor of Bastille Day Yesterday...

Once again, Poor France has been struck by a senseless act of violence.

Bastille Day is their equivalent of our 4th, and it was such tragedy to occur on a day where everyone in Nice was celebrating.

So in honor of our French friends, here's a blast from this blog's past (from it's early days, August 2009), and the ultimate French Summer recipe!

This recipe is also great for when the screams "I'm bored!" 0 have them whip it up from garden to table!

Mimi decided that she and Miss Grace would tackle Ratatouille from the kid's new What's Cooking? Ratatouille A Cookbook for Kids cookbook, edited by Thomas Keller. Miss Grace was a bit young, but she had a  good time helping with the "chopping", by loading said chopped items in bowl and stirring them together. 

Due to her age, she the master prep chef! Instead of the formed dish from the movie, true Ratatouille is more of a vegetable stew (as seen in the critic's flashback moment in the movie). We served ours over rice (we're Southern, what else would we serve stew over?). I personally am not a fan of eggplant and squash (please don't send me comments- I had to try them as a child-hated them, tried them as an adult-still hate them), but the flavor of this recipe is excellent, and perfect for using up all those Summer veggies overflowing your garden!

Ratatouille

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, cubed

4 small zucchini, chopped

4 tomatoes, chopped (we used a can of tomatoes,drained)

1 bulb garlic, chopped )or less, depends on how much you like it)

1/2 to 1/2 cp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1 onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cp chopped fresh basil (we used dried)

1 red or yellow pepper,chopped (we used combo of both)

Parmesan Cheese

Rice- instant or regular (make while working on Ratatouille)

Optional: we had some leftover baked chicken that we shredded and added to the mix, you could also add leftover crawfish or shrimp!

Directions

1. Salt the eggplant, then drain in a colander for 1 hours, then pat dry.

2. Heat half the oil in a large saucepan and briefly saute the eggplant til brown, then add the onion and peppers. Then add garlic, zucchini and tomatoes. Cook until a soft stew has formed, about 15-20 minutes

3. Add chicken (or seafood), if you want to. Add salt, pepper and basil. Sprinkle with the cheese and serve over the rice.

 Serves 4 (per original recipe).
By adding chicken and more peppers we really got more like 8 servings. When you put it over the rice it really is enough for 2 meals if served with salad and bread or rolls, plus you can freeze any leftovers for delicious lunches for Mom or Dad at work!