You’ll want to put this Sicilian vegetable salad on everything

I don’t use my slowcooker often, but I am most likely to break it out in the summer when my overall culinary mission, besides getting to my nearby farmers market each week, is to avoid standing over a stove or firing up my oven. Based on the popularity of the Slow-Cooker Ratatouille I did for this column last summer, I am guessing many of you feel the same way. So this year I looked toward a different region of the Mediterranean for another summer vegetable dish that lends itself to that appliance and landed in Sicily, with this caponata.

It is an “agrodolce” (soursweet) tomato and eggplant stew that is studded with the textures and tastes from celery, raisins, olives, capers and pine nuts. This version is as simple to make as could be. You just toss together everything (except the pine nuts) in the slow cooker and turn it on. Using small eggplants eliminates the prospect of bitter seeds, so you don’t need to salt the vegetable or fry it ahead as most recipes call for, and I was happy to discover that there is no need to peel the tomatoes, either.

After 2 1/2 hours when the vegetables are soft and beginning to lose their shape and the flavors have melded, you allow it to cool to room temperature and then stir in the toasted pine nuts.

I enjoyed the batch I made several different ways throughout the week. I served it in a small bowl to spoon onto crostini for my guests who popped in for a glass of wine. I spread it generously onto crusty bread and topped it with slices of fresh mozzarella and basil leaves for an openface sandwich for lunch (I did put that in my toaster oven to melt the cheese. Does that count as turning on the oven?) And I served it as part of a large antipasti spread for dinner one night. I still had some left over, which I froze to enjoy again sometime down the road — no heat required.