I, like a lot of Boulder residents, read The Daily Camera– our local paper- online. I saw this recipe in August and recreated it it exactly. This simple, fast dish had me so impressed that I made it again.

The second time was just as great as the first, and led to a conversation about how such a simple dish can have complex, developed flavors. Fresh, seasonal produce is the key to an absolutely delicious ratatouille. It is the time of year to make ratatouille, so let’s all head out to our gardens or local market, gather these ingredients, and savor some seasonal veggies.

Here is the recipe from The Daily Camera, courtesy of The Culinary School of the Rockies:

Ingredients:

• 1 small eggplant, un-peeled, cut in 1/4 in dice
• 3 TB olive oil
• 1 pound zucchini, quartered and sliced
• 1 red pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
• 1 green pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
• 1 cup onion, thinly sliced
• 1 TB finely chopped garlic
• 6 plum tomatoes, 2 beefsteak, or 2 large heirloom tomatoes, cored, seeded, and cut in large dice
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• 4 TB fresh basil, coarsely chopped

I am a HUGE fan of Alton Brown and often stay up late watching his shows. I caught one on making tomato sauce and think (without being overly dramatic) it changed my life.

I bought 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes from the Boulder Farmers Market and got ready to make some sauce. 20 pounds of tomatoes turns out to be a lot of tomatoes. Alton Brown’s recipe calls for 20 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded. I used more like 60 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded, and ran out of Pyrex baking dishes for roasting.

Just as a side note… I did not even come close to using all 20 pounds of tomatoes in this batch of sauce. The rest were used in a Grilled Roma Tomato Sauce, which turned out really good, so I repeated that recipe (basically tripled it) and made 4 jars to freeze for future use.

But, back to my Alton Brown-inspired sauce. I washed, cut in half, and seeded as many tomatoes as would fit in 6 Pyrex baking dishes. Then I coarsely chopped an entire bulb of locally grown garlic and a large yellow onion and tried to evenly distribute the garlic and onion throughout my 6 dishes. I drizzled olive oil over all of the tomatoes and sprinkled them with sea salt. It’s really quite simple.

Then, into the oven! 2 hours at 325 is a long time, so don’t plan to make this sauce if you need to leave the house.

I shuffled the baking dishes every 45 minutes or so to be sure they were evenly heated. After 2 hours, Brown suggests cranking the heat to 400 so the tomatoes caramelize for 30 minutes.

They come out of the oven looking beautiful and delicious. I let them cool and then scooped them in manageable batches into the Vita-Mix to blend them into a smooth sauce. This sauce, I must say, is FANTASTIC! Absolutely worth the time and effort, I promise.

In the end, I wound up with these 4 jars, which I froze for future use. I will let you know how I use them.

Happy cooking!

This is a summer of firsts for me. It’s the first summer I’ve owned a Vita-Mix, the first summer I’ve participated in a CSA, the first summer I’ve tried to can and store foods, and the first summer I’ve ever purchased 20 pounds of tomatoes.

We had big plans for these tomatoes, but that’s for another posting. Our first night with a 20 pound behemoth on our kitchen counter we selected 10 tomatoes to make some grilled tomato sauce.

The sauce is very easy. Just slice the tomatoes in half, drizzle with olive oil and sea salt, and grill for a few minutes on each side. Next, grill 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 onion, and 1/2 green pepper until they are as beautifully grilled as the tomatoes.

This all goes into the Vita-Mix, goes up to speed 10, then high, then transfer to a sauce pan for a few minutes. Add as much sea salt and pepper as you like. Done.

I served this with Stuffed Ronde de Nice Squash, grilled Japanese eggplant, grilled bread, and some parmesan cheese.

Enjoy.

I brought home my CSA veggies and the weekly share of 12 eggs, but had 12 eggs still in my fridge since we had been away the week before. This was an overload of eggs, so our only solution was to have eggs for dinner.

This is a simple dish: Eggs scrambled with sauteed red onions and Haystack Mountain Boulder Chevre, served with sauteed turnip greens and sliced tomato, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil.

Took 20 minutes, I think. I’m used to taking a lot longer in the kitchen than that! But, they starts in this meal are the farm eggs from Ollin Farms. Their color is so brilliantly golden, you’d think I added saffron threads. But no, it is au naturale.