Ratatouille

A few weeks ago I went to a restaurant and tried ratatouille for the first time. It actually was a sandwich, which for some reason intrigued me. I LOVED it and have been talking about it ever since. So this evening I set out to recreate the sandwich. I found this recipe for ratatouille a couple of days ago and finally went to the grocery store to pick up all the ingredients. I couldn't find yellow squash, so that is left out. I also used 1 can of diced tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes. I didn't use any fresh spices, they are all from jars. The recipe was really easy! For me the prep time was about 45 minutes, but I'm pretty slow when it comes to chopping veggies.

Here are all the ingredients, ready to start cooking.

Onions and minced garlic added to the hot olive oil.

Eggplant and Thyme added to the mix.

Next come the green peppers, red peppers and zucchini.

Tomatoes with juice, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper.

The recipe says to cook everything together for only five minutes. I reduced the heat to low and let simmer for an additional 20 minutes. This is what it looked like after simmering.

I did not have rosemary ciabatta bread (like the restaurant), but I did have some Arnold's Whole Wheat Thins. I lightly toasted the thins. Spread some goat cheese on one side and added the cooled ratatouille to the other side.

VIOLA!

The ratatouille sandwich turned out so good! The goat cheese really makes the sandwich and is an excellent addition to the ratatouille. It was so good that I wolfed down the first sandwich and uh..went back for seconds!

I put half the leftovers in the freezer and plan on having another sandwich or two in the next couple of days. Maybe I'll try the ratatouille alongside a chicken breast, that sounds good too!