Sunday, 31 August 2014

Vegetable Bake

I have been leaning towards vegetarian foods lately, don't get me wrong I like meat, but sometimes it's good to just eat yummy vegetables without all that animal fat. The winter weather has had me looking for something a little more warming than a salad, and so I thought why not make a lasagne!! I love lasagne but all that pasta, bechemel sauce and meat wasn't what I was looking for. So I came up with this vegetable bake. The layers of eggplant make it really filling and satisfying, and the addition of a little cheese makes it oh so delicious. The cheese of course can be omitted or substituted. If you really can't go without meat, lean beef or chicken mince could be added.


Ingredients:
-          2 x eggplants
-          2 x zuchinni
-          2 x carrots
-          1 x can corn kernels
-          1 x can cherry tomatoes
-          1 x can crushed tomatoes
-          1 x onion
-          Grated cheese
-          Pumpkin sliced thinly about 3mm and cut into small pieces


Method:
1.   Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius.
2. Slice eggplant lengthways about 3 – 5mm thick. Not too thick or they won’t cook, not too thin or they’ll go to mush.
3. Cover them with salt and leave for a while to extract water.
4. Cut up and fry the onion until caramelised.  
5.  Grate zuchinni’s and carrots and put in pan along with both tins of tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Stir and cook down to reduce liquid a little.  
6. Place some sauce on the bottom of a dish ( approx. 30cm x 20cm ) and layer up with eggplant and sauce. Put a layer of the sliced pumpkin somewhere in the middle as well as a layer of cheese.
7. Finish the layers with eggplant on the top and sprinkle grated cheese on the top. Lightly spray some foil with oil to stop from sticking and place over top of dish to stop cheese burning.
8. Cook for about an hour, then take foil off and cook for another 15 – 20 mins at 180 degrees celcius until cheese is golden brown and vegetables are cooked through.
9.  Allow to sit for about 10 mins then portion into containers. Drain any excess water from the bottom.