A SIMPLE RATATOUILLE DISH

For my entire childhood and most of my adult life, I couldn't stand zucchini. Over the years, various people in my life thought it was funny to try and sneak it into different recipes thinking that I might just fall in love with it at some point. Typically, I would walk into the kitchen and immediately ask where the zucchini was hidden because I could sniff it out a mile away. Looking back, I think that it was all a huge waste of energy on my part. Zucchini is just so delicious.

But this post isn't about zucchini... it's about ratatouille. Give me a minute to walk down memory lane. All my hatred for zucchini changed about eight years ago when we were visiting family friends at their house in the south of France in Roquebrun. We walked into the kitchen of this beautiful house perched on the side of a mountain and it smelled divine. Sylvie was hard at work in the kitchen making a southern French style ratatouille. She had picked all the vegetables out of the garden that morning. It was nothing short of spectacular and my love for zucchini was born.

The ratatouille recipe that I am sharing with you today is very similar to what she made for us. This recipe is my wife's ratatouille recipe that we sold through our catering company with huge fan fare here in Cleveland. Sometimes simplicity speaks volumes.

HOW TO MAKE RATATOUILLE

Making a good ratatouille starts with the ingredients. For this recipe, we are only going to use 5 fresh ingredients. Let's take a look at them:

1. Onions: you can use just about any type of white onion except the sweet varieties. I've found out (much to my surprise) that onions like Mayan Sweets give the ratatouille recipe a cloying flavor that isn't wonderful.
2. Tomatoes: You can use whatever type of larger tomato you would like. If heirloom is your style, go for it. I wouldn't use any type of cherry tomato in this recipe, although its larger cousin the plum tomato would work fine. We're looking for about 4 cups total on the tomatoes after they are chopped.
3. Zucchini: Typically I try to buy medium sized zucchini. They have good flavor and are really easy to work with.
4. Yellow Squash: Again, I like the medium squash size. I find that with the larger squash the seeds are really developed which I just don't like very much in ratatouille.
5. Garlic: I use roasted garlic but fresh will work just as well. If you use fresh garlic, go ahead and mince it and add in at the tail end of when you are cooking the onions to build a bit of fragrance. Instead of 5 roasted garlic cloves, go ahead and use 2 or 3 fresh garlic cloves instead.

Making ratatouille is simple. All you need to do is add these fresh ingredients to a pan, add in some Herbs de Provence, salt and pepper. It kind of just makes itself from there. I really don't know of a more simple ratatouille recipe than this one.