RATATOUILLE
Ratatouille is a classic vegetable dish that’s pretty Paleo on its own—all I had to do to make it 100 percent was to skip the Parmesan cheese usually found sprinkled between the layers of vegetables. This dish can be as rustic or as fancy as you want; I’ve seen the layers tightly stacked in a circle around the baking dish so it looks almost like a kaleidoscope, and I’ve seen everything just thrown in and spooned out equally casually. Either way, the vegetables for this dish come together in a really delicious medley. SERVES 4
PREP TIME: 15 minutes
COOK TIME: 1 hour
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 eggplant, diced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dried parsley
2 zucchini, cut into rounds
1 onion, cut into rings
1 green bell pepper, cut into strips
2 large tomatoes, chopped (or 10 ounces cherry tomatoes, sliced)
1 or 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Grease a baking dish with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté the garlic until fragrant, about 2 minutes, and add the eggplant. Cook, stirring periodically, until the eggplant begins to soften, about 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and the dried parsley.
- Spread the eggplant across the bottom of a baking dish, and layer the zucchini rounds on top. Season with salt, and layer in the onion, bell pepper, and tomatoes, seasoning each layer with a pinch of salt and some pepper.
- Bake for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Garnish with the fresh parsley and serve.
VARIATION 1 BREAKFAST RATATOUILLE: Serve topped with one or two fried eggs for breakfast—just drizzle some olive oil into a hot skillet, and crack the egg gently over it. Cook on one side until the white is no longer runny. Carefully flip and cook for a minute or two on the other side, depending on how done you want the yolk.
VARIATION 2 RATATOUILLE WITH MUSHROOMS AND SAUSAGE: Sauté 1 or 2 hot Italian sausages in a pan with 10 ounces mushrooms. Remove the sausage once it’s cooked through, and slice. Add the mushroom-sausage mixture to the baking dish on top of the eggplant before layering on the remaining veggies and following the recipe as written.
PREP TIP: Cut up all your veggies a day or two before. You can also assemble the dish ahead of time and then bake before serving (although you’ll have to cook the eggplant the day of and put it on top instead of the bottom of the dish).
