Vegetable Casserole

A strategy for using up vegetables. Based on a Giada De Laurentis recipe found here.

Ingredients

• 1 sweet potato
• 1 quarter green bell pepper
• 2 carrots or about 10 baby carrots
• 1/2 eggplant
• about 1/4 of a cabbage
  
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 white onion
• 1 large zucchini
• salt, pepper, and basil
  
• 1/2 tin diced tomatoes
  
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 tablespoons dried bread crumbs

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Wash and chop potato, carrots, pepper, eggplant, and cabbage into 1/2 inch pieces. Place them in a casserole about 2 inches deep and 13x9 and toss with salt, pepper, basil, and 2 T olive oil. Make an even layer.

2. Slice onion into thin rings and layer over the top of potatoes etc.

3. Slice zucchini into 1/4" thick rounds and make a layer on top of the onion. You may not need the whole zucchini.

4. Spoon tomatoes onto the layer of zucchini.

5. Mix bread crumbs (see notes below) and Parmesan, add a little basil, and spread on top of the dish. Drizzle with 1 T. olive oil. Put in the oven with the top off for about 40 minutes, until veggies are cooked and the cheese and bread crumbs are browned.

Notes

*You can make bread crumbs easily using very stale bread and the largest holes on a box cheese grater.

*The eggplant came out well, but I thought the sweet potatoes and carrots were underdone. Still, Dan and Claire really liked it, which was nice. If I hadn't been cooking this directly after a run, I probably would have cooked it for longer, maybe letting it go the first 10 or 15 minutes with the lid on so the topping didn't overbrown with the added cooking time.

*3/7 on the disaster scale. Not bad; could have been better.

*What not to do: run 3.75 miles at a very brisk pace and then drink tequila. Wow.