Ratatouille

As a treat for myself, I made ratatouille today.  I made it for a holiday dinner but this batch is strictly for moi.  It is delicious but a bit putsy.  The putsy part is collating the vegetables (red pepper, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, repeat).  The sauce is easy to make.  You don't even cook the vegetables in the sauce but put them in the blender raw.

Sauce Ingredients:  1 red pepper-seeded, 1/2 yellow onion, 3 cloves garlic (I used 5), 1 15 ounce can tomatoes, 3 TB olive oil, 1 TB lemon juice, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 TB dried oregano, 1 (heaping?) TB red pepper flakes.  Put all sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth.  Pour 3/4 of the sauce into a cast iron skillet and spread evenly. Save the last 1/4 of the sauce for later.  

Dish Ingredients:  1 eggplant, 1 red bell pepper, 2 zucchini, 2 yellow squash.  Wash those vegetables and slice them very thin.  Collate the vegetables and arrange the slices in a spiral around the skillet. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Drizzle the remaining sauce over the top of the vegetables.  Lay a piece of parchment paper over the top of the skillet. Bake for one hour.  Bon Appetit!