Ratatouille-ish

We are still on the hunt for more zucchini recipes! Have you ever seen the movie Ratatouille? Have you ever actually HAD ratatouille?? Well, we loved the movie but have never actually had the dish 🙂 So I looked up a recipe by Tasty and decided to try it with what we had on hand.

The Tasty recipe called for slices of zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and yellow squash. While I love eggplant I didn’t have any on hand, so I left that out. I’m not a huge fan of yellow squash so I’ve stopped using up space in my garden for it, so no yellow squash in this recipe. Zucchini and tomatoes on the other hand, have their own dedicated beds in our garden and we eat them all summer long so those made the dish!

I also noticed the Tasty ratatouille recipe didn’t have any meat in it and I knew we’d have a better chance of the kids eating it if wasn’t all veggies, so I added in some Isernio’s mild Italian chicken sausage. I didn’t exactly follow the ratatouille recipe in full, thus the name Ratatouille-ish 🙂

Preheat oven to 375* F

For the Veggies:

• 4-6 medium zucchini
• 6 large tomatoes

For the Sauce:

• 1lb Isernio’s mild Italian chicken sausage
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 28oz can crushed tomatoes (or roughly 6 large tomatoes, diced)
• 2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped (roughly 8-10 large leaves)

For the Herb Seasoning:

• 2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped (roughly 8-10 large leaves)
• 1 tsp garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 tsp fresh thyme
• salt & pepper to taste
• 4 Tbsp olive oil

Directions:

1. Using a knife or mandolin, thinly slice the zucchini and tomatoes into approximately 1/16-inch rounds. I arranged one layer alternating zucchini and tomatoes around the base of the dish then set aside the remainder for the top.
2. Make the sauce: brown the ground chicken sausage over medium-high heat. Add in the onion, garlic and bell peppers and sauté until soft, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the crushed tomatoes. Stir until the ingredients are fully incorporated. Remove from heat, then add in the basil. Stir once more, then pour meat mixture into dish over the single layer of zucchini and tomatoes.
3. Arrange the remaining zucchini and tomatoes in an alternating pattern on top of the sauce from the outer edge to the middle of the dish. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Make the herb seasoning: In a small bowl mix together the basil, garlic, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Spoon the herb seasoning over the vegetables.
5. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover, then bake for another 20 minutes, until the vegetables are softened.
6. Optional: top with shredded cheese to hide the veggies so the kids will eat it 🙂
7. Serve while hot as a main dish or side.

Leftovers: The ratatouille-ish is also excellent the next day–cover with foil and reheat in a 350˚F (180˚C) oven for 15 minutes, or simply microwave to desired temperature.

Kid Tips: First of all, I always need to remember the kids don’t like to SEE their veggies. I forgot that I usually do two key things: #1 – Peel all the skin off the zucchini, that green skin is a tell tale sign of a veggie! #2 – Hide the veggies, having them layered on the top was a show stopper for the kids! Topping it with shredded cheese got them to eat one round of it, but once they discovered the sliced zucchini under all that cheese they weren’t too keen on leftovers. I ended up combining my left over zucchini roll with the rest of this Ratatouille-ish spread over the top. The combo of the two basically ended up tasting like lasagna and it was delicious!!

Check out some of our other favorite zucchini recipes…