ratatouille soup with tapenade

Our son said to me yesterday, "Daddy, I want to be a chef." Then he started calling me "Chef Daddy." I feel this is a ploy to get more Thomas the Tank Engine trains.

It will work.

It's funny when you (we) have children, you want to introduce these big "something specials" to them. For me, I can't wait for our kids to be old enough to read Roald Dahl's "The Boy Who Talked with Animals," but I'd hate for them to get the idea I want them to runaway on the back of a giant sea turtle. It's a horrible balance, isn't it? "I want you to love this" vs. "don't embrace it too fully please, because I like you and would hate to see you go tumbling down a hill inside of a giant peach."

And so it was with Ratatouille. I want our kids to love cooking. To love food. To find something new in creating, filling people up and making them feel better. To solve problems by looking at something and thinking "what could I make with that?"

Our son can't say "Ratatouille," so he calls it "The Rat That Cooks."

That seems like enough.

And his sisters are almost old enough to watch a little bit. I want them to see the joy of the whole thing.

I hope.

So. Ratatouille soup. We came up with this recipe (a term I use very loosely) when our good friend and theatre director, Jessi Hill, and her partner were set to come for a visit. Karen and I both did theatre with Jessi in Chicago, and then she got a fancy degree from Yale, and now she's doing her whole big thing here in NYC. She's one of those people that you cheer to succeed, and you know she will. 

On the day she was set to visit, we were deluged with horrible rains and wind, wiping out her visit. We had made a giant batch of ratatouille. We were flooded with roasted vegetables, and we couldn't bear to get rid of them. So we made soup. The soup was better than the actual ratatouille. Then we added dollops of tapenade, and the whole thing was brilliant. (We still owe Jessi dinner, and the flooding this week reminded me how much we miss her.)

Here is the so-called recipe. Improvise, please. It's very forgiving.

Note - Don't worry too much about perfect slices of the veggies. You're going to blend the whole thing. No one will know. 

Ratatouille Soup with Tapenade

• Two onions, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 5 tomatoes, peeled (No good fresh tomatoes at the store, so I used canned. I know. I'm disappointed, too. We'll get over it. Dump out the juice if you feel like it. Keep it if you don't. It'll be fine. Relax.)
• 4 small eggplant or 2 medium ones. (I don't like giant eggplant. It's funky in not a good way.) Slice these 1/4 inch thick right before you assemble everything. You don't need to salt them if you've done that with eggplant before. You're not frying them, so the liquid is good here.
• 4 small green and/or yellow squash, cut 1/4 inch thick
• Thyme. Or rosemary. Or both. Remove the thyme from the woody stems, but leave it on the green soft stems. Chop the rosemary after you've taken it off the stem. 
• Add in whatever else you like. No one is looking.
• Olive oil. Salt (Kosher, yes?) and pepper.
• A quart of chicken or veggie stock, but probably less. Plan for 2 c. to start, but have the extra handy. Or use water. Really, current chicken stock from the store is pretty much water, so just do water if you want.
• Tapenade, purchased or make your own by blitzing some pitted olives, capers, garlic, and olive oil.

Crank up the oven to 400-500. Just depends how you're feeling. 

Assemble all the ingredients together. 

You can layer them in a Dutch oven or throw them on a giant cookie sheet. Covered or uncovered (uncovered gets you some tasty browning, but watch that it doesn't burn).

Toss with olive oil. Thyme. Rosemary. Salt. Pepper. Bake for 45 minutes or so. Eyeball it.

Does it look done? No? Roast it some more. I've gone 90 minutes when I cut the vegetables too thick.

When you're good with the doneness (stick a fork in the veggies), take it out of the oven. If you have a stick/immersion blender, this will be easy. If not, use a food processor, but use caution with the heat. If you aren't careful with hot items in a blender (don't put the top on; cover it with a towel), it will explode, sending near-boiling liquid hurtling through space and time, and leaving you with some nasty face burns. I know from experience. 

Add in some stock to the veggie (figure out how much you need yourself). Blend. If too thick, add some stock. Taste. Salt and pepper until you're happy.

Scoop some soup into a bowl. Add a dollop of tapenade.

You're welcome.