Ratatatatooey!

1. a sort of ratatouille
2. sliced steak
3. blackberries
4. sugar plum
5. fruit gel

Ratatouille is traditionally made with eggplant. This wasn't. I should probably be calling it Tomato and Zucchini Cooked Together or something like that, but I like to say Ratatouille. Actually what I -really- like to say is Ratatatatooey! Pronounced like RATA TATA TOOEY! Exclamation required. Here's a recipe. And by recipe I mean process. And by process I mean just cook it sorta like this.

Ratatatatooey!

2 or so tablespoons of olive oil
1 chopped onion
few cloves of sliced garlic
a big can of diced tomatoes (I'm in love with Muir Glen fire-roasted)
a couple of zucchini sliced into rounds
a handful of slivered basil leaves
salt and pepper

Cook the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft but not browned, then add the zucchini and tomatoes, bring to a simmer and cook covered for about 10-15 minutes until the zucchini are soft. Add the basil and salt and pepper to taste. If I were going to add eggplant I would dice it up and salt it and let it sit in a colander in the sink to drain out for a while. I'd add it with the tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes before adding the zucchini and cooking for another 10 minutes or so. I would hope to remember that I'd already salted the eggplant and would be careful not to add too much salt at the end.



About those plums...I bought those at Trader Joe's in one of those clamshell plastic things they use to package fruit. I also bought some prunes. It wasn't until much later that I noticed the fine print on each package. The plums were labeled "Sugar Plums (fresh prunes)" and the prunes were labeled "Prunes (dried plums)". I'm not sure what significance this has really - except that I'm still thinking about it.