I snagged this recipe from Ann Iijima, a fellow Just Food Coop board member. She posted it in last issue's Compost (this is the coop's newsletter).
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ratatouille or, How to Use Up Your Full CSA Share
submitted by Ann Iijima
We did this every week with our CSA share and loaded up our freezer with bags of ratatoille. This is great as a meal, particularly with local cheese and home-baked sourdough bread. We also like to skin chicken thighs (local, of course) and throw them into the pot—presto-chango: Chicken cacciatore (aka “chickatoilletore”)!
All of the ingredients & quantities below are approximate. The short form of the recipe would be: “take one end-of-summer CSA share, wash, chop, simmer in a large pot.” It always turned out great!
Ingredients:
2 Tbs oil (olive, butter, etc.)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
6 tomatoes, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 medium eggplant, chopped
3 medium zucchini, chopped
1 sweet pepper (any color), chopped
Optional: hot peppers, cooked chick peas (garbanzo beans)
Salt, pepper, basil, cayenne
Directions:
Heat oil in heavy pot. Add onion (caramelize by cooking over very low heat until brown). Add garlic; saute until fragrant. Add tomatoes; cook until slightly thickened. Add other vegetables and cook until tender. Season to taste. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ratatouille or, How to Use Up Your Full CSA Share
submitted by Ann Iijima
We did this every week with our CSA share and loaded up our freezer with bags of ratatoille. This is great as a meal, particularly with local cheese and home-baked sourdough bread. We also like to skin chicken thighs (local, of course) and throw them into the pot—presto-chango: Chicken cacciatore (aka “chickatoilletore”)!
All of the ingredients & quantities below are approximate. The short form of the recipe would be: “take one end-of-summer CSA share, wash, chop, simmer in a large pot.” It always turned out great!
Ingredients:
2 Tbs oil (olive, butter, etc.)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
6 tomatoes, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 medium eggplant, chopped
3 medium zucchini, chopped
1 sweet pepper (any color), chopped
Optional: hot peppers, cooked chick peas (garbanzo beans)
Salt, pepper, basil, cayenne
Directions:
Heat oil in heavy pot. Add onion (caramelize by cooking over very low heat until brown). Add garlic; saute until fragrant. Add tomatoes; cook until slightly thickened. Add other vegetables and cook until tender. Season to taste. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here are all of the ingredients I used, I didn't measure quantities. There are: eggplants, green and sweet peppers, zephyr zucchinis, broccoli florets, red onions, garlic, fresh parsley, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, olive oil, and some cooked garbonzo beans I happened to have in the fridge....
After the tomatoes were cooked, the rest of the chopped vegetables and cooked garbonzo beans were added. These then had to cook down for awhile with occasional stirring, it took about an hour to soften all of the vegetables (but there were a lot in the pot!). I tasted and added more salt and pepper pretty liberally as these cooked down.
...I used a slotted spoon to spoon 4 quarts of the ratatouille in freezer containers, reserving the tomato juice and some veggies at the bottom. The 4 quarts were cooled to room temp, covered, and then put in the freezer for later use. Next, the vegetables and tomato juice were then ladled into a gallon mason jar and were put in the refrigerator, I'm going to eat it this week as soup!
Later that night I heated up a half gallon of the ratatouille with the tomato juice in a pot. When it came to a boil I turned it down to medium-high heat and added pasta noodles and let these cook for ~8 minutes while they absorbed the tomato-y deliciousness. This was then topped with shredded mozzarella cheese, and voila!.... a tasty supper with tons of fresh vegetables.