Ratatouille with spinach

This dish screams comfort to me. It's fast, healthy, and most importantly, delicious. Most ratatouille uses eggplant, summer squash (zucchini or thin skinned squash), onion, and root veg. For this recipe, I subbed out the squash for spinach because.....well, I didn't have squash. But hey! That's the great thing about cooking. Improv! Play! Experiment! Who makes the rules? You do. The one with the knife! Ok. Sorry. I got carried away.

I have some tips when it comes to that wonderfully bulbous purple veg: the eggplant. The skin (or more exactly, right under the skin) holds a little bit of bitterness. Some like it, some don't. If you are in the "don't" category, peeling the eggplant will mellow it out. Slice the eggplant into rounds before cooking, sprinkle with salt, and lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet for a half hour to an hour prior to prepping (dicing). This also mellows out bitter favors, and helps to leech out some of the moisture so your end product is firm and not mushy. Who wants naked mushy eggplant? Not me. If you are crunched for time, microwaving also helps leech out some moisture. Microwave for 5 minutes, let sit to cool, then pat with paper towels. Voila! Eggplant that is prime time and ready to party.


In my recipe I used:

• 1 eggplant
  
• 1 bunch of spinach
  
• 1 parsnip
  
• 1 carrot
  
• 3 roma tomatos
  
• 1 bell pepper
  
• 4 garlic cloves
  
• Kosher salt, black pepper and dried oregano. (A little secret - the mexican food aisle of the grocery store, where all the little cellophane bags of herbs are? Dried oregano there is amaizing. The leaves are whole little round things of oregano loveliness. So fresh tasting, and at 65 cents a bag, it's a steal.)
  

Veg gets chopped into similar sized chunks and garlic gets a dice.
Get your hard veggies into a pan (onions, carrots, parsnips) heated to medium with some olive oil or ghee. Sautée them til they start to give up a little love, and caramelize a bit.
Then add the rest of the goodies, all except the tomato. You can add some butter and a splash of white wine for extra flavor. Go for a dry wine like Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio - it will add a nice hint of acidity and brightness. Stay away from oaky heavy Chardonnay. Eggplant loves to absorb the flavors it's cooked with!

Season with oregano, salt and pepper, and sautée for about 3 - 5 minutes, or until cooked to your liking. Not too long or the eggplant will get mushy. Just keep an eye on the eggplant and use that to gauge how long your sauté should be. And taste it!

Add tomato and go 2 - 5 minutes more. You can stop here, or...if you have a stove to oven pan, drizzle a bit of olive oil on top and fresh grated parmesan and broil for just a couple of minutes. Broiling will make the tomatoes cry mercy, and adds a great roasted flavor to the dish. A flavored oil such as lemon tarragon works good for this step. Or any flavor oil you wish. You have the knife, remember?

Cheers!