Tomato
Eggplant
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Sauce:
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green Bell Peppers
Tomatoes – Roma, Vine Ripened, just not beef steak.
You can use jar pasta sauce to make things easier. Tomato and Basil is a good one.
White Onion
Shallot
Olive Oil
Basil
Salt
Black Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Powdered Ginger
Cumin
Sugar
Garlic – I used both whole cloves and powdered.
For never doing this before, I’ll say this. Spoiler – it came out great!
I suck at writing down measurements so I will do my best. I just keep going until my ancestors tell me that there is enough garlic.
The whole process took about 3 hours.
Just go ahead and start that Oven now. Preheat it to 375°F
I dusted off my charcoal grill for the first time this year. I really felt like getting a nice smokey char on the Peppers, Onion, and Shallot would really do more for these vegetables. Give them a good chop in the middle and toss ’em on the grill.
Once charred, I threw the veggies in the oven while I prepped the blender and gathered my Olive Oil, Herbs, and Spices. I did this thinking I wanted to make sure they were really soft and cooked through.
Putting the veggies under the broiler could achieve this if an open flame is not available to you. Add a light coat of oil on them first!
Roughly chop the veggies and throw them in the blender. Careful now – they just came out of the oven.
Add your Basil, Olive Oil, Salt, Black Pepper, Sugar, Crushed red pepper, Powdered Ginger, Powdered Garlic, and Cumin.
I added about 1 tablespoon of Ginger. Working with Ginger, with anything that could be very earthy, it brings it up with a lighter note. Can’t quite explain it, but we tried.
Not a lot of Cumin was needed. Maybe half a tablespoon. Paired phenomenally with that char.
About 2 tablespoons of sugar. Helps with the acidity of the tomatoes and heat from the pepper flakes.
I had some frozen tomato sauce that was made last year with homegrown tomatoes. However, you can just add a couple of tomatoes to the blender too.
Four-fingered pinch of Salt and Pepper – I try to not add a lot of salt early on in cooking. It will be harder to adjust later on as you cook off the water.
A little Crushed Red Pepper Flakes go a long way. Coupled with the black pepper.
Quarter a cup of water in a pot and your lovely puree and let that come to a low simmer. Cover for about an hour or so. Periodically check it with a stir and taste test. Add seasoning for taste.
I took my emulsion blender right into the pot (I took it off the burner first. Because I know some of you.) to try and smooth it out even more. A solid 5 minutes of doing this. Made the sauce significantly smoother.
Got about 5 Garlic Cloves and smashed them with the flat of my knife. Threw them into the sauce. Let the sauce simmer again. After another 30 minutes, I took it off the stove.
I pushed through small batches of the sauce through a strainer to remove the plant matter. You can keep it in, no real need for this step. I just really wanted that silky smooth sauce to plate.
If you do strain it and find that your sauce is way too watery. I believe some Tomato Paste will be your friend. That and another 5 mins on the stove. I thought I would need this, but everything turned out to be fine.
I bought a Mandolin for this part!
Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Tomato, and Eggplant.
I bought an excess amount of these things. With a 10″ Steel Skillet. It only took me 1.5x Zucchini and Yellow Squash, 2 Eggplants, and 2 tomatoes.
You could get away with 1 Eggplant – I messed up the initial use of the Mandolin and wasted a good portion of the Eggplant.
I used the Mandolin’s second-thinnest adjustment level. Couldn’t say the width, but with hand cutting. You will want to cut thin!
Pour some sauce into the skillet to cover the bottom.
Arrange your veggies in the skillet any way you’d like. As long as you stick with the pattern for visual appeal.
Drizzle some more sauce and olive oil on top. Cover with tin foil.
Cook for about 30 mins. Uncover and back into the oven until the veggies are tender to the fork.
My dish ended up being way too watery. Not really sure what caused it, but I’m thinking that next time I’ll skip the tin foil to let some of that moisture escape. Thankfully, I was able to save the dish by reheating the leftover sauce and just pouring it over the top after I plated it.
Garnished with some Italian parsley.