Early Fall Vegetable Bake

I confess: this recipe was born out of laziness.  We’d picked up some eggplant at our CSA and I knew I had a block of mozzarella cheese in the fridge.  As much as I’m ready to switch over to fall colors and flavors, casseroles and soups, it is also important to me that I continue to get and use whatever summer produce is still available.  It won’t be long before it seems like all we’re eating is potatoes and squash, so I’m making the most of variety while I can.  I’d already made eggplant parmesan, so I wanted to try something else.  Initially I planned on Red, White and Blue Eggplant from the Victory Garden Cookbook or  my variation of Striped Eggplant, Tomato and Cheese.  But then I got lazy; layering all those ingredients vertically seemed like more work that I was prepared to do last week.

So I came up with this instead.  If we’re being honest, it’s still a bit of work, and it’s still layering.  But you don’t have to worry about your layers falling over and I really enjoyed the flavor and texture of this dish.  It’s sort of a lasagna meets a vegetable casserole; soft, cheesy and fragrant with herbs.  There are just a few noodles, but they help hold the whole thing together.  We got 8 servings out of this recipe, which covered a dinner and three days of lunch at work.  I can’t complain about a meal that gets that much mileage.