Ratatouille

I have always wanted to make this dish, and for some reason I was kind of intimidated by it, but it is SO easy! For this Ratatouille dish, I served it over quinoa to add a little more substance. Besides being tasty, is this dish beautiful or what?! I slightly adapted the recipe from one I got on this blog. Stephen LOVED this meal, I think it might be one of our new favorite dishes, on or off the cleanse!

1/2 onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 jar favorite spaghetti sauce (no sugar added- I used Roasted garlic from Trader Joe's)
1 small can tomato paste

1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small eggplant or 1/2 of a large eggplant

2 zucchinis

2 yellow squash

1 red bell pepper
1 yellow pepper

salt and pepper

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Cook your quinoa according to the box instructions. 
• Saute the garlic and onions in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until tender. 
• Pour the spaghetti sauce into a baking dish along with the garlic, onion, Italian seasoning,  red pepper flakes, add salt and pepper- mix all up. 
• Slice up all your veggies very thin- for this step I wish I had a mandoline, but my sharp (sort of) knife did the trick.
• Arrange all the slices of veggies in your pan. You could always just chop all the veggies up and mix everything together and bake- this is probably more traditional and just as yummy. I just wanted to do a cool presentation!
• Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle some more italian seasoning over it. 
• Cover the dish with a piece of parchment paper 
• Bake for 45-55 minutes until veggies are clearly cooked but still have some structure. You should see tomato sauce bubbling up around them.
• Serve over top your quinoa!