Yummy Potato Casserole

I maintain that if you want someone to eat something weird, make it smell like pizza.

This casserole of eggplant, potato and tomato smells like pizza, and it tastes really good. The vegetables are layered in a dish, sprinkled with a little parmesan, and baked for a couple of hours. They soften and meld together like the best ratatouille but with very little oil and no stove-top cooking.

You will read this recipe and think it can never work: not enough liquid, everything will be dry. But the long cooking allows the vegetables to release their juices, and the flavor is unbelievable. I think it's similar to the long slow cooking of meat, but of course this is way better.

I prepped it Sunday afternoon, let it sit for a while before putting it in the oven, and then let it cook gently until we were ready to eat dinner. Wow. It should feed 6, but 4 will fight over it.

I feel this recipe is a throwback to when we cooked in clay dishes in the ashes of our fires. It is too hot to have a fire, but you'll get the same flavor in pyrex in the toaster oven. I cannot recommend this dish more highly.

Potato Tomato Eggplant Casserole
3 large tomatoes
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
6 potatoes (18 oz)
1 large onion (8 oz)
1 medium eggplant (1 lb)
1/2 cup parmesan
fresh basil to garnish (optional)

Start by making the tomato sauce. Cut the tomatoes on the equator and scoop out the seeds with a small spoon or your finger. Core and chop the tomatoes into small dice. Stir together with the olive oil and tomato paste. Peel the garlic, chop it and mash it with the 1/2 tsp salt. Add to the tomatoes along with the red pepper flakes.

Peel the potatoes and slice thin. Peel and halve the onion and slice thin. Take the top and bottom off the eggplant. Slice the rest thin.

Butter a 6-cup casserole. Put 3/4 cup of the tomatoes in the bottom, spread thin. On top, put 1/2 the potato slices and season with a little alt and pepper. On top, put half the onion slices and season again Pour another 1/2 cup tomato sauce over top, then half the eggplant slices and more salt and pepper. Next put 1/2 cup tomato sauce and 1/4 cup parmesan. Then the remaining potato slices, salt and pepper, the onions, more salt and pepper. Finally, the last of the eggplant, more seasoning, and the last of the tomato sauce.

The vegetables will rise up above your casserole. That's okay. Squash a lid on them. Press it down while you preheat the toaster oven to 350°F.

Bake the casserole, covered, for 1 hour. Use a spatula to press the vegetables down (and peel them off the lid if necessary). Put the cover back on and continue to bake for another hour. Press the vegetables down again. Sprinkle them with the remaining 1/4 cup parmesan and bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes or so until the cheese is bubbly.

Let the casserole sit at room temperature at least 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with the fresh basil (I usually forget to do this).

 It's also good at room temperature and as leftovers reheated the next day.

Serves 4-6

I pressed the vegetables down with a jar of kamut while the
toaster oven was warming up. By the end of cooking, they
had shrunk down to below the side of the casserole dish.