Healthy Ratatouille

Have you ever seen the movie “Ratatouille”? It’s one of my favorite cartoon movies (I LOVE cartoon movies)! I watched it the other night, and it got me to wondering what is actually in ratatouille. After doing a little research and making some healthy and simpler substitutes here and there, I came up with my very own recipe for ratatouille!

It’s a really easy recipe, and it’s fun to make since you get to arrange the veggies how you want — so let your creativity flow!  I made it so that it’s really good for you and the ingredients are really quite simple.

This recipe makes a great dish that can stand all by itself as a meal, but I paired it with some soba noodles (buckwheat noodles) mixed with fresh herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary) and a bit of olive oil and sea salt.  I am now sitting here happily satisfied after a delicious dinner!

HEALTHY RATATOUILLE

Ingredients

• 2 small red onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 eggplant
• 2 zucchini
• 2 green peppers
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• olive oil
• sea salt, pepper

Directions

1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.) Chop up all your veggies.  Slice the eggplant, zucchini, and onions.  Cut the peppers into rectangular pieces.  Slice the tomatoes into three pieces each.  Put the garlic through a garlic press.

3.) Put all veggies in a glass baking pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.  Mix around making sure everything is evenly coated.  Arrange the veggies how you would like — I stacked mine side by side, then put the tomatoes in-between each stack.  I had a few left over peppers and onions, so I put those on the ends where I had a little room left.  Top with the thyme and rosemary.

4.) Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

5.)  Take out of the oven and remove foil.  The vegetables will have cooked, but they won’t be browned yet.

6.)  Put back in the oven (uncovered), and bake for an additional 40-45 minutes.  This will brown the veggies.

7.) Serve alone or as a side dish.  I paired mine with soba noodles and fresh herbs.

Enjoy! 🙂