Ratatotouille in 20 easy steps

Instructions for making Ratatotouille…

Step 1: Your neighbor who speaks French only, offers up 2 zucchini over the fence. You don’t know how to say politely in French, “I’m sorry, but my mom scarred me for life with zucchini, and now I’d rather eat worms.” So you say "Merci beaucoup."

Step 2: Stare at the zucchini and weigh the karma between doing something with it, and throwing it away.

Step 3: Decide this is a great opportunity to cross another French recipe off the list.

Step 4: Go to the store with the intention of buying peppers, onions and eggplant, forget your list at home, and come home with no eggplant, as you really don’t know what to do with eggplant. Go back to the store.

Step 5: Begin chopping the eggplant and zucchini into very precise pieces… 1/8” x 1” x 3”. Salt the zucchini & eggplant and let sit for 30 minutes.

Step 6: Chop onions, peppers and Garlic. Sauté. Set aside.

Step 7: Slice the tomato goo (recipe on page 86) Seriously??? Grrrr.

Step 9: Get out the last of your bowls and pans to prepare tomato goo. Your kitchen should be thoroughly destroyed by this time.

Step10: Make stupid Tomato goo.

Step 11: Check on eggplant & zucchini… see that it is now in a sea of salty squash goo. Pat each piece dry… there are about a million pieces. Have fun.

Step 12: Sauté Eggplant Zucchini mixture one layer at a time for 1 min on each side. This sounds exact, but you will quickly find this task impossible, and begin trying to flip them… this will not work. You try your best and move on.

Step 13: Read the directions about the tomato goo about 50 times with zero comprehension about what it actually wants you to do. Consult other recipes online and just thrown the onions and peppers into the tomato goo and simmer the heck out of it.

Step 14: Realize you forgot parsley & go back to the store. Come home and chop Parsley.

Step 15: Enter your destroyed kitchen, shake your head, clear a spot, wash & chop parsley.

Step 16: take 1/3 of your tomato pepper mixture and put it at the bottom of your fancy French pot.

Step 17: Add ½ the sautéed eggplant/zucchini

Step 18: Add another 1/3 of the tomato mix, realize you forgot to put it on top of the first layer of sauce, growl, curse to yourself, and add parsley to the 2nd layer.

Step 19: Add the last of the eggplant/zucchini and top with remaining sauce and parsley.

Step 20: Read that it says to put it on the stove, but your stovetop kinda sucks, so put it in the oven.

The dish will be ready in a about an hour and you kitchen will take about that ling to clean.

This is supposed to be delicious but it also has a good chance of being vile.

Bon Appétit.