Roasted Summer Vegetable Lasagna

I love eggplant. It is one of my favorite things to cook with glossy and deep purple skin is pretty to sit on the counter until you get around to cook with it! Grilled, charred, cubed, saute, roasted it's tender and smokey and a great meaty fill in for vegetarian dishes. This recipe could be made fully vegetarian just omit the ground beef I am 100% sure you won't miss it. 

Last week we took a trip to the farmers market store. I loaded up on veggies to use all week..then the heat wave hit. It was way to hot to turn on my oven and I really wanted to make a roasted eggplant lasagna. I made one last summer with veggies from out neighbors garden and fell in love with the meaty smoky dish. The heat wasn't so bad on Sunday so I broke out the oven! 

Our neighbor plants a huge garden every year and sometimes we get visits from the vegetable fairy. He drops off bags of veggies on our porch. This week he dropped off some cucumbers that I used in salads, some green onions which I used in this dish, and a yellow squash that I have not used yet. 

Did you know: 

Eggplant is Brain Food. Research on eggplant has focused on an anthocyanin phytonutrient found in eggplant skin called nasunin. Nasunin is a potent antioxidant and free radical scavenger that has been shown to protect cell membranes from damage. In animal studies, nasunin has been found to protect the lipids (fats) in brain cell membranes. Cell membranes are almost entirely composed of lipids and are responsible for protecting the cell from free radicals, letting nutrients in and wastes out, and receiving instructions from messenger molecules that tell the cell which activities it should perform.

Ingredients:

2 Large Eggplant, sliced lengthwise

1lb Ground beef (turkey, chicken, sausage any mix or opt out all together)

2 cups Tomato sauce

1/2 large bag frozen mixed vegetables

2 Zucchini, diced

12 Mushrooms, diced

8 Green onions, sliced thin

1 Yellow onion, diced

1 Green pepper, diced

1 Large container ricotta cheese

2 cups Mozzarella cheese, shredded

EVOO

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Italian Seasoning

1. Slice Eggplant, salt, press for 30 minutes. Place on baking sheets season with pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning drizzle with EVOO and roast  400° for 30 min. Let cool on sheets. 

2. In skillet brown meat season with salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and Italian seasoning
3. Dice veggies and mix with browned meat, once browned add in the 1 1/2 cups sauce.

4. Mix Ricotta cheese with pepper, onion powder, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder, set aside.

5. Once the eggplant is cooled use the remaining 1/2 cup sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and create a single layer of eggplant on the bottom. 

6. Top the eggplant layer with the mixed vegetable/beef.

7. Top this layer with the ricotta mixture.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 until all the ingredients are used. Top with 2 cups of Mozzarella cheese.

9. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Let stand for 30 minutes before serving for it to set up.

As you may notice I did not add additional sauce in the layers, I did not want to to be to moist and squishy and not set up enough to cut without it falling apart. I served this with a green salad and some last minute garlic bread. The nice thing about dishes like this is that so many of the vegetables are able to me swapped out for what ever you have on hand. It's a summer garden empty your fridge kind of dish. 

It was yummy and we had left overs for dinner tonight. 

Enjoy ^.^

<3 Laura