Looking around my kitchen before work, I realized that I had all the
ingredients necessary for ratatouille. I also had some purple string beans
which were getting a bit aged in my refrigerator.

I started out by cutting three spicy Italian sausages into 1-inch lengths.
(I know it's not a traditional part of ratatouille, but I like it.) I didn't
remove the casings because I wanted the sausage to retain some of its shape.
That went into a saucier and started cooking over medium heat. I didn't need
to add any fat; the fat that rendered out of the sausage was sufficient.
Once a bit of the fat had rendered out, I added a chopped onion, a chopped
red bell pepper, and a chopped yellow bell pepper. I let them cook for a
while, then added an eggplant and a zucchini, both of which had been left in
fairly large chunks. I salted the mixture and added a fair sprinkling of
herbes de Provence. I covered the saucier and let the mixture simmer for
about fifteen minutes. Then I remembered that I had some mushrooms which
needed to be used up, so I cut them into big chunks and added them. Covered
the pan again and simmered for another eight or nine minutes.

During the cooking of the sausage-vegetable mixture (which I don't think
qualifies as ratatouille anymore), I put a big handful of new potatoes on to
boil in salted water. They cooked for ten minutes while I cleaned and cut a
big handful of purple string beans. (I should have put a couple eggs in the
water too, but I forgot.) The string beans went into the water with the
potatoes, and they cooked together for about seven or eight minutes. After
that, I dumped them into a colander, then immediately into an ice water
bath. They sat in the ice water for a couple minutes to cool down, then I
lifted the ice out and dumped the vegetables into the colander again. The
bowl which had previously held the ice water was used as a mixing bowl for
the vegetables, to which I added a pouch of tuna and a jar of marinated
artichoke hearts, making a kind of *******ized (and much abbreviated)
Niçoise salad. That all went into a big Gladware container.

Once I had the faux-Niçoise salad completed, I generously sprinkled the
sausage-vegetable stew with finely-grated Parmesano-Reggiano cheese, then
ladled out enough to mostly-fill a 4-cup container. I rounded out my meal
with a ciabatta roll and an apple. (I don't know what variety of apple I got
in my CSA box this week, but they're FANTASTIC for eating out of hand.
Nicely sour, crunchy, and juicy -- and I'm not normally a big fan of
apples.)


Bob
NOTE: Ratatouille normally has garlic in it. I considered adding garlic to
the sausage-ratatouille stuff, but I didn't have enough time to cook it long
enough for the garlic to mellow, so I left it out. It would have made a good
and traditional addition.