Ratatouille

We had friends over for lunch today, a rare treat as they live a long way away and they dropped in to visit whilst they were on their way home from spending the holidays with family. It was very exciting as we don't get to see each other very often, especially now we both have children. There were a few things that I needed to consider when feeding our friends. One of our friends needs a gluten free diet, not something I'm familiar with but was a fair challenge. Also their daughter is 16 months old and so whilst she is likely to be well into eating normal family meals, she may not be as adventurous as our son. I also wanted to spend as much time with them as possible rather than being tied up in the kitchen. Finally when they leave us they will have a 2 or 3 hour drive depending on traffic so a heavy meal needed to be avoided.

Taking all of this into consideration, I decided baked potatoes would be a good option and the Aga would be a massive help. I know baked potatoes are easy but with the Aga, I don't even have to think about turning the cooker on and waiting for it to get to the right temperature, an hour in the Aga gives a cooked potato with crispy skin. What to put with the baked potato? Cheese seemed boring whilst baked beans aren't everyone's idea of a good grown up meal. So I decided to cook some ratatouille, not something I've cooked before but a simple easy dish that I knew would be quite happy cooking for a couple of hours in the bottom oven. The recipe feeds 6, there were in fact 4 adults and I put the remaining ratatouille in the freezer for another day. We also had lots of cheese left over from Christmas which was enjoyed along with crackers and home-made plum chutney.

Ratatouille Feeds 6 (plus toddler and 1 year old)

1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion

2 celery stalks

1 red and 1 green pepper

2 courgettes

1 aubergine

2 tins chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato puree

Salt and pepper

Oregano

Bay leaf (or 2)

1. Put the olive oil in a casserole dish (or other suitable dish that has a lid), roughly chop the onion and celery (I chopped the celery smaller than the onion) and put in the dish. Start to soften this over a medium heat.
   
2. Whilst the onion and celery are softening, start to roughly chop all of the other vegetables into about 2cm large chunks, the more rustic the better. Once the onion and celery have softened (5-10 minutes) add all of the chopped vegetables, both tins of tomatoes, the tomato puree and seasonings. Give it all a good stir, turn up the heat until it is bubbling gently.
   
3. Put on the lid and put into an oven about 160-170°C for 2 – 2 ½ hours.