Ratatouille

Guaranteed to Make Your Kitchen Smell Awesome!

Ratatouille is a fantastic dish on its own, but serve it with rice or orzo for a satisfying lunch or dinner. Whether you say "rat-a-too-eee" or "ra-ta-twee" either way it's a super-tasty dish of veggie goodness with a delicious aroma to boot!

You can also devour this dish with rice, or orzo shown at the bottom of this page.

Ingredients for Ratatouille:

1-1/2 cups dehydrated zucchini (or yellow squash – or combo!)
1/2 cup dehydrated onion rings
1/4 cup dehydrated mushrooms
3 slices dehydrated elephant garlic, crumbled
1 whole fresh eggplant, cubed (I leave the skin on, so wash well first)
10 black olives cut in half
boiling water (for dehydrated items)
2 tablespoons olive oil salt* and pepper to taste
1 14.5 oz. can small-diced tomatoes
1 cup of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon dried Italian Herb blend (more or less, to taste) NOTE: Optional Orzo, 1 cup

How to Make Ratatouille
and Make Your Kitchen Smell Like You Live In Europe:

1. Use the freshly boiled water to re-hydrate the dehydrated items above, let sit until they have plumped up.
2. Put oil in a large saucepan, sauté the eggplant.
3. Pour off excess water from dehydrated veggies, and add the veggies carefully to your saucepan as water can spit in hot oil.
4. Add 1 cup of vegetable stock, and add the Italian seasoning.
5. Add the sliced olives.
6. Add the mushrooms.
7. Cook for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
8. If adding the orzo, add this at step 4. You may need to add a little more boiled water too, if you find the orzo drinks up your stock too soon. Orzo only needs around 10 minutes to cook – half the time of rice. This, to me, makes this Ratatouille dish like a risotto!

*IF you need to add salt, do so, BUT be careful NOT to over-salt as the bouillon has salt in it.