Ever since I saw the preview for the Pixar movie, I’ve always wanted to eat ratatouille. Not that the movie really explained what it is, but I came away with the impression it was some sort of lame, poor-man’s vegetable stew/soup that is undergoing a rediscovery. Vegetables — good! Then I started to look at recipes and realized ratatouille involves eggplant.

Ew.

I decided that I would just … omit … the eggplant, but when I was at the store, I got this feeling that I can’t just omit it. After all, as I’ve grown up and moved out of my parents’ house, I’ve realized that sometimes, you just gotta cook with things you always pick out of your food (I’m looking at you, garlic and green onions). But then, after all the vegetables were roasted and mixed together, I couldn’t even tell which ones were the eggplant! Inwardly panicking, I decided I would just … not chew … anything. Which was hard to do.

Alas, whether the end product is ratatouille or not, it tasted great, so I managed to calm down enough to enjoy it. We ate it with pasta and on its own, and I’m going to try the leftovers with some bread later.

Main ingredients: eggplant :( , tomatoes, bell peppers.

Chinese twist: Instead of yellow squash, which doesn’t exist in China, I used some kind of Chinese squash that kind of is like a fat light green zucchini? Also, instead of normal American herbs, like thyme, basil and parsley, which also don’t exist in China, I used fennel (or something like a cross between fennel and dill) and cilantro.

Total cost: 13 RMB ($1.92) for about six servings. It IS a poor-man’s dish.