Protein Packed Ratatouille

Before all the shutdowns happened, we noticed shelves being emptied in our local supermarkets. Specifically the canned goods, toilet paper and baking goods isles. Once our Chancellor announced the shut down, we also started to panic and bought a few too many cans of beans.

It's interesting how panic can spread, isn't it? We never thought it would affect us the way it did, but we didn't really know what the shutdown would look like, or understand how we would be able to get our groceries every week. So like others, we started to buy non-perishable things in case we couldn't leave the house.

Didn't end up needing all those beans after all? I thought of the perfect way to incorporate the beans into a vegetarian meal of ours. The secret is in the bottom layer: right under the tomato sauce lies a delicious layer of refried beans! Call it a hybrid between French and Mexican food. It's such a hearty, yet healthy vegetarian recipe!


Ingredients:

• 1 can of beans 
• 1 zucchini 
• 1 yellow squash 
• 1 Carrot 
• 1 Yellow onion 
• 1/2 Chinese eggplant (nice and slim) 
• 2 San Marzano tomatoes 
• 1 ball mozarella 
• tomato sauce 
• salt 
• pepper 
• garlic powder

Instructions:

Refried beans:

1. In a small pot simmer 1/8 cup of water and add the beans and let them warm up. As they start to simmer, start mashing the beans to make a thick paste. 
2. Add 1/ 2 tsp of each: salt, pepper and garlic powder.
3. Keep mashing until it has a nice consistency, but still has pieces of beans.
4. Spread the refried beans onto the bottom of a pan that will fit all of your vegetables. 

Ratatouille:

1. Heat up olive oil in a pan and in the meantime chop up the onion and carrot into 1/4 inch squares. Saute them in the olive oils until they become soft. 
2.  Pour the tomato sauce over the onion and carrots and stir well. Then pour it onto the layer of refried beans.
3. Start to layer vegetables (i.e. tomato, then zucchini, then eggplant) in a clockwise rotation. Begin at the centre and move outward. 
4. Fill in any gaps between the vegetables with remaining tomato sauce. Season with salt, pepper, and dry oregano. 
5. Drizzle with olive oil. If you have pesto or herbed oil, that works too! I used wild garlic pesto, which I added to the olive oil to give it more flavour.
6. Bake in the oven at 180 °C (375 F) for one hour. Cover with foil to avoid having to clean the tomato sauce off of the sides of your oven!
7. Eat and enjoy!