This wonderful vegetarian dinner was easy to make. It used 15 different vegetables and only took about 15 minutes to prep. The baking time was 1-1/2 hours - and it was unattended. The house smelled wonderful and now we have leftovers for tomorrow, too.

I found these graffiti eggplant in the market today and immediately thought of making ratatouille and a vegetarian roasted dinner. Roasted dinners are my favorites - you put everything in the oven and then serve when done. The house smells great and there is little attendance time. Plus you are more efficient with energy use because everything goes in the oven.

Ratatouille

Here are the main ingredients:

2 eggplant, cubed

1 yellow squash

1 zucchini

1 onion

garlic - minced - 2 cloves

1 shallot

1 cup mushrooms

1 bell pepper

2 cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp parsley

1 cup water or broth

Place all ingredients in a large covered casserole:

Bake for 1-1/2 hours.

We also added a steak potato and a fancy yam:

And a spaghetti squash:

It is easy to make this delightful squash -you cut it in half, remove the seeds and place it cut side down in a covered baking casserole. A microwave can cook it in 10 minutes, but we chose to throw it in the oven with the ratatouille and the yams.

And in the mean time, while these items baked, we made an heirloom tomato salad and the snack bowl for the week.

This is celeriac - it is a root that has a distinct celery flavor. It is delicious when put in soups and when shaved or minced finely for salads.

These are heirloom tomatoes. They are non-hybrid, open pollinated tomatoes that are very intriguing in the number of colors and shapes they are available. Generally they are interesting and very flavorful. It was our best choice for the winter market and since we were going vegetarian there is more room in the budget for fun items like these.

The salads, we decided, should be individuals - diners have their choice of red or yellow heirloom tomatoes, complete with julienne (thin strips) of celeriac and shaved organic carrots. We topped these with olive oil and balsamic vinegar glaze and black pepper:

I also bought huge pears and honey crisp apples - so those got washed and put in a bowl in the refrigerator - waiting to be snacks for the week. I noticed they disappear faster when put in a bowl:

It took about 1-1/2 hours for the ratatouille, potato, yam and spaghetti squash to cook until perfect. (The oven was 375-400 degrees):

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