4-18: French Vegetable Casserole

Everything I needed to learn about making 4-18: French Vegetable Casserole was told to me by Remy the animated rat, star of Ratatouille. I know…the editors of Simply Delicious call this dish “French Vegetable Casserole” to make the name more palatable for Middle America. ??

The card mentions that the dish is referred to as “ratatouille” in its area of origin.

Editor’s note: I did the underlining you see above when I realized this recipe was “ratatouille”I’ve made this recipe before, a year or two prior to embarking on this project. I even watched Ratatouille on my laptop while I made it. ?


Another recipe that involves a ton of slicing. My knife skills have been honed through preparing a few recipes like this.


Such colorful vegetables. I didn’t have any green zucchini on hand, but I had yellow and that works just as well.


Thin pepper strips are so tough to slice consistently. I tried extra hard to slice these thin so the ratatouille would have good layers.


Olive oil sheen over sautéing vegetables…such a beautiful sight.


Check out how thinly I sliced the zucchini! With canned, diced tomatoes and sliced cherry tomatoes, there’s lots of color in the pan.


Garlic and spices and freshly chopped basil…the aroma is intoxicating at this point. After 3o minutes of cooking, the dish is ready to serve.


The finished product is so beautiful. Ratatouille is notable for it’s soft, semi translucent zucchini and eggplant, swimming in tomato-and-olive-oil-based sauce. I enjoyed eating this dish as much as the critic in the film. Spoiler alert…ratatouille is really good.

GRADE: A