Have you tried baked ratatouille? It has all the hallmarks of a basic ratatouille: tomatoes, peppers, zucchinis, etc., but the main difference is the dish goes in the oven during the final stage of cooking. All you need to do is prepare your tomato-based sauce, chop your vegetables and any additional ingredients you want to include, transfer everything to an oven-proof dish, and let it bake in the oven for approximately 45 minutes.
When you prepare the vegetables, aim for slices that are roughly the same size, so they cook as evenly as possible in the oven. A mandolin is great for perfecting thinly sliced vegetables, but if you don’t have one, you can slice them manually.
Add your choice of protein to your tomato-based sauce to turn this recipe into a more substantial meal. I like to add cooked sausages to the tomato sauce before layering on the vegetables.
After you’ve arranged the vegetables in a circular shape on top of the tomato-based sauce, you’ll notice a small gap in the middle. Feel free to leave it as is or fill it with something like avocado, for example; slice or mash the avocado, put it on top of the tomato mixture, and bake it in the oven. If you want to use rice instead, cook it first, and then spoon the cooked rice into the middle of the baked ratatouille right before serving.
Sauté the onion
and garlic in ghee for a few minutes until tender.
If using sausage,
chop several sausages and cook until no longer pink.
Add sausage and
tomatoes to the onion/garlic mixture in the sauté pan.
Add Root Medley,
Carrot, Pepper Salt, and Turmeric Powders, oregano, coconut aminos, paprika and
ketchup to the tomato mixture.
Leave to simmer
for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Do a taste test,
and add additional salt or seasoning to taste as desired.
Transfer the
tomato mixture to a round, ovenproof dish. Set aside.
Slice the
zucchini and eggplant.
De-seed the
peppers and thinly slice.
Layer the
vegetables on top of the tomato mixture so they slightly overlap and form a
circle. Alternate the vegetable slices: zucchini, eggplant, red pepper.
If you want to
put avocado in the middle of the sliced vegetables, now is the time to peel and
mash a couple of avocadoes and place on top of the tomato mixture.
When you’re done,
lightly drizzle olive oil over the vegetables and place in the oven for up to
45 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
Remove from oven
and let cool slightly before serving. Finish with a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil
while plating.
Recipe Note
You only need a small number of vegetables, and it doesn’t matter which ones you use, but try to pick the smallest size available. If you have leftover vegetables, you can use them to make a vegetable omelet the next day.
