I cleaned out the fridge while making a gallon of pico de gallo- and found about seven eggplants hiding in there. It's time for the annual empty-the-kitchen ratatouille. This is a reasonable, pared down recipe. Feel free to quintuple. I assume this serves something like six, if you're sane.
Chop two onions, add to a large pot, and saute over low heat- stirring often- until nicely caramelized- about half an hour. Chop some peppers. You know, twoish bell peppers of any color, those sweet long peppers that are actually pretty hot, Hungarian wax peppers- I don't care. Chop them up. Roughly chop about seven cloves of garlic. I don't even know how I bought this much garlic. Chop up like a pound and a half of eggplant, which is a lot of eggplant, believe you me. It's not seven eggplants- it's about one big one, or two Chinese eggplants, or fifteen of those adorable Indian varieties.
Oh no, I forgot to add the Indian eggplants.
Blanch two pounds of tomatoes and let cool. Around now, the onions should be done. Turn up the heat, add the peppers, and cook for five minutes. Add the eggplant. Peel the tomatoes and slice into the pot.
Turn the heat down, cover, and cook for about two hours. It might not look like there's enough liquid, but the eggplant will soon start producing liquid. Stir every twenty minutes or so to prevent burning. If you want to put it in the slow cooker, put it in the slow cooker.
Spread on bread or crackers, or serve with an arugula salad. It's good with lemon and salt.
If there were a picture, it would be of my tired face.
Oh, right, maybe you have some summer squash. Chop that up and add it during the last hour. There you go.
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