When I first decided to make this I had thought about making and easier version of ratatouille, and then I decided I should try making a béchamel and make some sort of cross between a ratatouille and a lasagne, bringing about the term ratatagne as coined by a colleague of mine.

It’s the kind of dish you want in winter, tomato-y, creamy, buttery and hearty.

What you’ll need

• Winter veg – choose your favourites. I used broccoli, carrot, beans, cauliflower, mushroom, sweet potato, potato, eggplant and onions
• Chopped tomatoes (canned or fresh, you pick)
• Italian herbs
• Pepper
• Salt
• Garlic
• Chilli Flakes
• 50g butter
• 1/4 cup plain flour
• 2 1/2 cups milk

Procedure

Bechamel

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour. Cook, stirring, with a wooden spoon, for 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Gradually stir in milk.
2. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until mixture thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

Ratatagne

1. Preheat your oven to 180^oC
2. Grab your chopped tomatoes (I used canned) and put a layer on the bottom. Pick up your herbs and/or spices and garlic, chilli flakes and diced or minced onion and mix it into the tomato. Save enough for a second layer
3. Layer with any vegetables, barring eggplant, potato and sweet potato (I saved thin round cuts of these for the top layers.
4. I put a layer of just mushrooms next and followed it up with a thin layer of béchamel and sprinkle of cheese
5. More veg, béchamel
6. Eggplant sweet potato and potato. If you have béchamel left use it here, cheese, herbs and chuck it in.

I baked this for AGES. I think it was about 90 minutes at the end of it, everything was well cooked, but still a little crisp, but cooking time was the long one. I made it a night before and left it in the oven (because its winter and I knew it would be ok) and just reheated it for about 1 hour in the oven again!