Ratacrabby, Slow Cooked

Ratatouille is a delicious tomato-based French dish with eggplant (aubergine), zucchini (courgette), onion, and bell pepper.  Some people like it baked or fried or crunchy, but I like it soft and simmered.  Someone on the internet somewhere (how's that for vague?) described it as 'jammy' and I think that's a great way of describing what I think the texture of ratatouille should be like.  I like it hot in the fall and cold in the summer.  Well, I would like it cold in the summer if it ever got hot here in the Scottish countryside.  ;D

With love from the bottom of my crock.*

I loosely followed the recipe from this book -- which, by the way, is a fantastic resource for those of you who like to crock it up a notch.  (I don't know about you, but when I got my slow cooker, I kind of didn't know what to do with it and now I even bake sweet potatoes in mine!)  I say I loosely followed the recipe for two reasons -- the first is that I always loosely follow recipes unless they are some kind of baked cake or pastry and the second is that I didn't have a bell pepper, so I substituted paprika -- paprika is ground up pepper, so I figured that was the next best thing I had on-hand.  ;p

Ratatouille is traditionally a side dish, but nowadays is often served as a main with pasta or rice.  Tonight, I served it with some pasta** and a side of white beans seasoned with garlic and thyme. 

*  Which is way better than love from the bottom of my crack.  Just take my word on that one.
**  Value Pasta (rotini) and Value Spaghetti are only 19p at Morrisons right now.  I stocked up.  Value Digestives are 19p at the moment, too!