Ratatouille Lasagna was the fifth of my 2015 Resolution:

This began as a collaboration with Éric Trépanier during his visit to California in the summer of 2015. He’d been watching a French Canadian cooking show, Qu’est-ce qu’on mange pour souper focused on making healthy meals in 30 minutes. This “Lasagne à la Ratatouille” got rave reviews in his household, so we decided to make it together. I’ve made it many times since.

Here is the recipe in French, and here’s the English translation. Helpful hints:

• 30ml is two tablespoons
• 300g is 10.5 ounces
• 250ml is roughly a cup, so:
• 500ml is roughly two cups
• For crème champètre, use Half & Half or light whipping cream

The bulk of the time spent making the dish is chopping then sautéeing vegetables. I really like the thin cheese sauce versus the mounds of shredded cheese used in a typical lasagna. I don’t think we did it the first time, but using Trader Joe’s Diced & Fire Roasted Organic Tomatoes with organic green chiles, rather than plain canned tomatoes, adds nicely to the dish.

Here’s what it looks like just prior to assembly:

And here’s what it looks like half eaten:

This is a great dish to make for vegetarian friends. I suspect they tire of eggplant parmesan or traditional spinach and mushroom lasagna. This dish is much more of a celebration of vegetables, and it’s less heavy on the cheese. I’ve found it pleases nearly everyone, and a great added bonus is that it’s able to delight vegetarians.

Ratatouille Epilogue

It was really fun to make a meal together with Éric. If you have friends visiting who also like to cook, I’d definitely recommend setting aside an evening to cook something together. I think we opened the wine before we began cooking, which I’d also recommend.