Summer ratatouille out of the oven

The reason I'm calling this 'summer ratatouille' is because I make ratatouille a lot and find new ways to prepare it each and every time I eat it. In winter I'll make it a bit heavier, using canned tomatoes and lot's of thyme and maybe some red wine. In the summer, I try to keep it as pure as possible, giving the fresh ingredients (tomatoes!) the spotlight they deserve. When I ate this it was 30 degrees outside and I wanted to keep it fresh and light. I planned to eat this with couscous but I sinned big time by eating half a bag of crisps before cooking and completely ruined my appetite. So I just ate it by itself. I love this way of preparing ratatouille. Tomatoes have a habit of becoming even better when put in the oven for some time, you really get the best out of them this way. I have a few more recepies in store involving baked tomatoes, so if you like this, stay tuned.

This grocery list is for 1. If you use the whole eggplant and zucchini and 3 big tomatoes, about 15 smaller tomatoes and 4 cloves of garlic (if you're garlic is somewhat smaller just double up, I had really fat cloves) and two goats cheeses you'll definitely have enough for 4. 


Grocery list:
- 1 large tomato
- A few (5 or 6) small tomatoes, I used 'sweet pearl', which is slightly bigger than cherry tomatoes. But cherry tomatoes or small roma tomatoes will be fine as well.
- 1/3 eggplant
- 1/3 zucchini
- 2 (big fat) cloves of garlic
- 1/2 goat's cheese
- A couple of fresh basil leaves


Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. Chop up all of the ingredients, the large tomato in four pieces, the smaller ones in halves, except the garlic cloves. Put all of the vegetables in a baking tray with a nice jug of olive oil. Season with some fresh grounded pepper. Put in the oven. After 20 minutes take out of the oven and mash up the tomatoes, leaving the skins intact. You need the juices for the zucchini and eggplant to cook. Put in the oven for another 25 minutes. Eat with some goat's cheese and the basil leaves on top. I don't need additional salt with this because of the salty cheese, but season to taste. You can eat some couscous with it, which is a great match for ratatouille.


Enjoy!