Week 23 - Confit

I wasn't looking forward to Week 23 of the challenge with its theme of confit. I didn't have much familiarity with confit, but, to me, it had always seemed really similar to deep frying, just at a lower temperature, and I don't really like to do anything of that sort at home. But as confit week went on, I learned that confit isn't just about submerging meat in lots of oil and fat to cook, but it's also a term for cooking all sorts of food in oil or sugar water. I thought about using fruit, but ended up going the vegetable route. I found this recipe for spicy red pepper and eggplant confit, and used it for inspiration to make a vegetable confit of our own.

The ingredients for the confit were:

- 12 oz jar of fire-roasted red peppers ($1.99)

- 2 yellow squash and 2 zucchini ($3.16)

- 1 small onion ($0.50)

- 6 large garlic cloves ($0.15)

- 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (with basil) ($1.50)

- 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil ($2)

- 1 tsp salt ($0.05)

- 1 tsp thyme ($0.05)

- 1 tsp oregano ($0.05)

- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes ($0.02)

This recipe cost almost $10. Fresh vegetables can be expensive! Add in a few dollars for the naan that we ate it with, and it's not really a cheap vegetarian meal. But it made enough for a generous dinner portion plus a bowl of leftovers and I guess it's still cheaper than going out.

This was a really easy recipe to put together. It ended up being a team effort with A and me since I was sick and didn't want to take a chance of contaminating our fresh vegetables.

How to make it:

1. Chop the peppers, squash, zucchini and onion into small cubes. Smash garlic and rough chop.

2. Add vegetables with tomatoes, olive oil and spices to roasting pan.

3. Mix everything together until all vegetables are well-coated. Spread everything out into an even layer.

4. Roast in the oven for about 1 hour, until vegetables are tender. Cool before eating.

We ate the vegetable confit over some baked naan, which was a nice combination. You could eat this by itself, but all the acid from the tomatoes and vegetables are better when offset by some sort of bread or grain. It tasted even better a few days later once all the flavors could sit together more, so making this in advance is not an issue at all.

This recipe tasted a lot like the ratatouille that A makes. I'm not sure how this "confit" was really any different from just roasting vegetables, except that it used a little more oil. But I'm pleased that at least I found a recipe that I could do for confit week that didn't involve using and/or wasting massive amounts of oil, and that was tasty and relatively healthy. I would make this again, especially since prep is relatively quick and the cooking is hands-off, although A's recipe for ratatouille is really quite good too. Now we have options!