ratatouille & samsoe gratin

The other day our supermarket had their 10% off coupon on all veggies. I bought quite a bit and made ratatouille it was really easy and tasted great.

The ratatouille that I made was adapted from "The French Kitchen"
Serves 4
1/2 onion, chopped
garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 eggplant, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
5 okra, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
dried oregano
dried marjoram
salt
pepper
flat leaf parsley, chopped

In a pan, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, garlic and onion
When the onion starts to turn transparent, add zucchini, eggplant, carrot and red bell pepper, salt and pepper to taste.
Cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and herbs.
Simmer until all veggies are soft.
Serve and garnish with flat leaf parsley.

Remember last week when my student gave me a little tub of cream cheese? Well, she also gave me an interesting cheese called Samsoe (Thank you again!). I had never heard of this cheese. It is a semi-soft Swiss-style cheese and is apparently named for an island near Denmark where it is made. I think this cheese might also be nice in fondue.

Since I still had veggies leftover from making ratatouille, I decided to make a gratin using potatoes, eggplant, red bell pepper, okra, onion, carrots and bacon. The weather hasn't been too hot so I figured this is one of my last chances to make a baked entree. I used this recipe for the bechamel sauce.

I can't give you a temperature at which I baked this gratin at because my oven has a pre-set button for gratin, but I will tell you that after the pre-set time, I cooked it in a 150C oven for 20 more minutes since the potatoes were a bit hard.

The gratin was spicy from the cayenne and the cheese matched nicely. With the addition of okra, the slimey consistency added to the gooey-ness of the cheese. The gratin was very delicious (and HOT (spicy & temperature wise)) and went well with a glass of red wine!