Ratatouille

This time of year ratatouille is the perfect dish.  All of the ingredients are in season and and the peak of their tastiness. Their are many many variations of ratatouille.

I kind of made it up as I went along. I read through the recipe in  How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food on Saturday morning and then tossed it together at my parents house out in Sodus.

I used:
2 small Eggplant  (Calliope eggplant from the CSA)
1 large Zucchini
1 large Yellow Squash
2 large Tomatoes (some incredibly tasty heirloom varieties)
8 cloves Garlic
6 Cippolini onions (2 regular onions)
Parsley
Basil
Oregano
Salt
Pepper


Slice the Eggplant, Zucchini and Yellow Squash on a mandolin or v-slicer if you have one. A knife will work just fine you just want to get the slices as even as possible. Cut each slice in half so you have a big pile of half moon shaped veggies. Chop the onions and garlic and set aside. 


Pre heat your oven to 375 and completely oil a casserole dish. Starting with tomatoes make layers of tomato, onion and garlic, squash, zucchini and eggplant. Sprinkle salt, pepper and herbs every other vegetable or so. Once your casserole is full to the top drizzle with a bit more olive oil and bake at 375 for an hour or more. You want the vegetables to be fully cooked and soft but still hold their shape. 
If you want more of a stew, don't take the step below.
At 40 minutes or so of cooking, pull the ratatouille and press down with a spatula, drain off some of the accumulated liquid and return to the oven to complete cooking.


It is more of a texture thing for me, I like my vegetables to be a little more dry and retain more of their independent flavors and textures. Stew just doesn't say summer to me so I like this is more of a side that is perfectly at home on a paper plate versus something that really needs a bowl.  I think I may experiment with all the veggies in this dish this week and slice and freeze them together for a nice winter ratatouille.

Zucchini pancakes

My dear mother-in-law has made these for years, and they've become a favorite in our family as well. Mine are a little different; I think I add more pancake mix so they're closer to pancakes than fritters. And I think Noreen adds more cheese. This recipe is a great way to use up excess zucchini.

We've always made them with Bisquick but were in search of something a *little* less processed today. I was going to try making them totally from scratch but Mark reminded me of our buckwheat pancake mix so I decided to use that. Best batch ever.

Shred 4 small or 2 large (if using large ones, you may want to remove the seeds) zucchini. I use the food processor but you can get by with a box grater instead.
You can also use any veggies you'd like in these; adding starchier ones to the zukes is nice. Carrots, beets, corn, and potatoes are all good. (Great use of leftover corn on the cob)
Shred or chop 1 medium onion
Place shredded veggies into a bowl and sprinkle with 1 tsp kosher salt; let sit 5-10 minutes. Press out excess water. Zucchini is a pretty wet veggie and your pancakes will never cook if you skip this step.
Sprinkle with 1/2 -1 tsp garlic powder (fresh is harder to completely mix into the batter) and black pepper.
Add 1/2 c. grated Parmesan or Romano
Add 2 eggs, lightly beaten
Stir in about 2 c. buckwheat pancake mix. Enough to soak up a lot of moisture.

Heat a griddle brushed with oil over medium to medium high heat. Drop about 1/4 c. batter onto the hot griddle and spread it out a bit. As with breakfast pancakes, watch for the edges to partially cook and for bubbles to form on top in the batter. Flip when the bottom is golden-brown, cook 2 more minutes or until the other side is also golden-brown. They may be kind of moist inside but the egg should still be cooked through.

Mark likes his served with butter. I've always liked mine with sour cream and salsa, but in the interest of making this "cleaner" I used fat free Greek yogurt tonight instead of the sour cream and that was pretty tasty (and provided a little extra protein and calcium).

These are great leftovers, just reheat in the toaster oven.

Also, if you can't get to the zucchini right away, or you have a metric ton sitting in your kitchen, grate/shred and freeze it in small bags, pressing the air out and storing flat. When you thaw it, you can skip the salt and drain step because the freeze/thaw process already pushes a lot of the excess water out. Just salt to taste instead. I love making this recipe from frozen zucchini in winter; it's like a taste of summer in January.