Oven Roasted Ratatouille!

Our trainer of the month, Stephanie, loves this fun and colorful dish! Of course you can tweak it to fit your style, but this is the recipe she uses from budgetbytes.com!

http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Oven Roasted Ratatouille

Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 45 mins
Total time: 1 hour 5 mins
Serves: 4-6






Ingredients

• 1 cup marinara sauce 
• 1 small yellow onion 
• 1 small eggplant 
• 1 medium zucchini 
• 1 medium yellow squash 
• 3 medium roma tomatoes 
• Pinch of salt and pepper 
• ½ tsp dried basil 
• ½ tsp dried oregano 
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella 

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

A word on choosing vegetables for this… no matter how small you think you’re going, once they’re sliced you’ll probably have too many. So try to scale back a bit. Pick the smallest eggplant you can find. A long skinny one works best, so that it will be close in diameter to the squash. I wish I had more tomato in mine, so I listed three in the ingredients. My yellow squash were super small, so I listed one medium sized squash instead of two small.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In the bottom of a deep pie dish or a rectangular casserole dish, spread 1/2 cup of marinara sauce (I just used generic, nothing fancy) and one small, thinly sliced onion.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Thinly slice 1 small eggplant, 1 medium zucchini, 1 medium yellow squash, and about 3 roma tomatoes (roma’s tend to be the least expensive in my area, but you can use whatever variety is priced well). Aim for 1/4 inch thick slices. If one of your vegetables is much larger around than the rest, like this eggplant, you can cut the rounds in half or into quarters to make them closer in size to the rest. It will make your life easier.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Layer the vegetables in the dish like dominos. If you’re using a round dish, like me, it’s easiest to start with the outer ring, then fill in the center part. When you start, they’ll all be laying down flat, but as you squeeze more into the lineup, they’ll start to stand up because there is no room.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Here’s a bird’s eye view. I started with the outer circle, then filled in the inner circle. I squeezed a few pieces right in the center, too. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper over the vegetables, as well as 1/2 tsp dried basil and 1/2 tsp dried oregano.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Add a little more marinara for good measure. I just loosely poured the remaining 1/2 cup of marinara over top. You don’t have to spread it around or anything. Cover the dish with foil and bake it in the preheated 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

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http://www.budgetbytes.com/

After 30 minutes, remove the foil and sprinkle 1 cup of shredded mozzarella on top (Parmesan wouldn’t be too bad to add in there, too). Return the dish to the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and lightly brown.

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