Cooking Adventures - Linguine with Ratatouille Sauce

This morning I was looking online for some new recipes to try. I decided to look at the Food & Wine Web site and found a lot of great things. What appealed to me most was a Linguine with Ratatouille Sauce. Ratatouille is essentially a big mess of vegetables that traditionally include eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, and tomatoes. Apparently ratatouille is originally French, but the recipe I found gave it an Italian twist. Because I think I might have been Italian in a past life—thus explaining my love of Italian food—I decided to give it a try.

For the most part I followed the recipe, but I did make a few changes. Because I don't like things too tangy, I omitted the vinegar. Because I wanted just a little bit of spice to the dish, I added crushed red pepper flakes. After I finished cooking and started eating, I realized that there were a few things I could have changed about the dish. In the first place, I should have diced the vegetables a little smaller. But hunger and impatience led me to give the veggies a larger dice. They probably also could have been sauteed a little longer before adding the crushed tomatoes. The recipe didn't call for peeling the eggplant, but the skin seemed a bit too tough and rubbery for my liking. Maybe it would have been better if I sauteed it a little longer, but I think that when I make it again, I might try peeling it.

All in all the dish was really good and the flavors were great. The only thing lacking was probably my technique, but at least I know where I sort of went wrong so I know how to correct it in the future. The dish was really filling and much heartier than I expected it would be. I have a feeling it would make a great pasta for the fall. The day today was a bit chilly, cloudy, gray, and rainy. So it felt like the perfect day for this kind of dish. It definitely hit the spot.