You knew it was coming: ratatouile

I probably misspelled that, and everyone who CAN spell it and is looking for a recipe will just have to do without mine. SIGH.
Yes, it IS that time of year. If you are a farmers market shopper, you are inundated with a sea of zucchini. Eggplant confront you everywhere. Purple, light purple, white. Tiny, small, medium sized, huge, round, elongated. And that's just the egpplant. Green, yellow, white, curly, long, round, avocado. And that's the squash. There's so much...

Trust me. In three months, we'll all be wishing we had it all. So, if you believe "the best of times is now" (and ragazzi, the best of times is ALWAYS now, whenever NOW is. Trust me on this. Trust me too on 'if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with. You won't regret it), then just buck up and do SOMETHING with that bounty.

Like make ratatouile. You know how. Of course you do. This is so easy to do, that you should be making it right now instead of reading this blog entry.

OK, read this blog entry, and then go and make it.

There are as many ratatouile recipes as there are ways to spell it. To Annalena's point of view, as long as they contain the four required elements (just like figure skating's eight required elements - or is it 9 these days?), the ratatouile is valid.

And what are those four required elements? Sue has her hand up as she always does, even though she is a specialist in pastry. Sue KNOWS these things. So someone else answer.

OK, the four required elements of ratatouile are eggplant, squash, tomatoes and basil. Those of you who thought garlic or salt get half credit, because it's not really good if you don't have those in it, but they are NOT required. The differences come in proportion and which type.

I really do not care what varieties you use. I just want you to use the best ingredients you have, and then, well... play with it. Tonight, when I made mine, I was faced with two bags of vegetables that I was very reluctant to give up: one was a bag of cubanelle (frying) peppers, and the other... a bag of organic okra. I tossed the okra and regretted it as soon as I did. NEXT batch of ratatouile WILL Have it in. But the peppers? Gee, did that sound logical. Here's how I made mine.

You start with three very large cloves of garlic. Slice them after you've peeled them. Put them aside, and work with EQUAL amounts of each of your required vegetables. In other words, if you have a pound of eggplant, use a pound of squash and a pound of tomatoes. I had a lavender eggplant, some globe zucchini, green and yellow, and heirloom tomatoes. Peel the eggplant and cube it. Stop worrying about how precise the cubes are. Then cube the squash, and the tomatoes. Keep them separate. In my case, I also seeded and cubed the peppers.

Put more olive oil than you think you'll need in the bottom of a big pot. Put the garlic in when it's cold. When the garlic begins to sizzle, add the eggplant, and stir it a bit. Then, lower the heat and cover it.

Come back in four minutes or so, and you'll see why I told you to use more olive oil than you will need. The eggplant will have picked it all up. Add some more, and now, add a heaping teaspoon of salt. Add the squash, and cover the pot again. Cook for another four minutes. Uncover the pot, and now, add another teaspoon of salt, and the tomatoes. At this point, add the leaves of half of a small bunch of basil, and cover the pot again, for another four minutes.

When the time is up, mirabile dictu, the oil will have been re-released as the eggplant breaks down and the water from the tomatoes forces the issue (because it does: the chemistry is a bit complicated, but the liquid phase is forcing some of the oil out of the eggplant.

At this point, you are done, except.... put the rest of the leaves of that bunch of basil in the pot, and turn off the heat.

You will have way more stew than you know what to do with. Well, I will tell you what to do with it. Ultimately, this is a very lean, very high fiber dish. So serve it next to something rich. Like a duck breast . Or, put it in a crepe. Or, on a pizza. Or, in perhaps my favorite way of using it (courtesy of the great MFK Fisher), warm some of it up, with either shrimp or scallops or both on top. The heat from the vegetables will cook the fish, and you have a wonderful lunch or light supper.

And if you happen to have vegetarian, or vegan friends, you can serve them half of this, and put the fish on top of it for yourself. If the vegans are actually vegetarians, put some cheese in it. You will not regret it.

And then, with the leftovers(and you WILL have leftovers), go and make one of the other ideas here.

Folks, "the best of times IS now. " Make that ratatouile, enjoy it, and try to make a mental note for the winter when you're eating root vegetables and longing for a tomato.