This week I lived my Pixar dream… except there was no mouse under my chef hat guiding me through the kitchen.
When I saw the movie Ratatouille back in 2007, I thought the dish was so fancy and something only professional chefs in France made. Well look at this, 11 years (!!!!!) later and while I am no where close to being a professional chef in France, I did successfully cook Ratatouille!
Originally unsure what the dish consisted of, I scanned the internet, sifting through the various forms of Ratatouille, and picked this super easy traditional recipe. It has 5 steps: cut the vegetables, make the tomato sauce, layer the vegetables over the sauce, bake and enjoy!
For this dish you use zucchini, eggplant, tomato and red onion. The sauce is crushed tomatoes, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, chili powder and Italian seasoning.
With a completed sauce and chopped up vegetables it was time to layer the dish. Considering the tomato, onion and eggplant were all larger than the zucchini, I did cut some of them in half so the vegetables cooked evenly… plus it was more ascetically pleasing when you could see all the different colors!
With the dish looking pretty it was time to bake it. After about 15 minutes and then again at 45 minutes, I drizzled some olive oil on top to make sure everything was cooked through and there was a little browning.
While the Ratatouille cooked, I decided to make Cauliflower Cheesy Breadsticks to go with it! I always need a side dish, and these looked fun while also providing a little protein to the meal.
I bought a bag of cauliflower rice, instead of making my own, but it still worked perfectly. I mixed the cauliflower with mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, 1 egg, salt, pepper and minced garlic. Then lined a greased baking pan and put it in the oven with the Ratatouille.
The cauliflower breadsticks took 30 minutes to cook and the ratatouille took 1 hour to cook. While they were supposed to cook on different temperatures, I just increased the heat towards the end of the cook time, and then broiled the cauliflower breadsticks after I took the ratatouille out.
It may not come out looking the prettiest (Pixar’s looks so much better), but it was very tasty! A perfect ratio of vegetable to sauce and it was surprisingly filling.
The cauliflower breadsticks were a great pairing, especially when dipped in a marinara sauce!
All in all, it was a fairly healthy dinner! Very filling and very delicious. I can officially say that Ratatouille is no longer just a fantastic Pixar movie, it is now a dish I have successfully completed… without a mouse under my chef hat.
-R-
