Food that smells of summer: 2 vegetable dishes

Last week I had quite some tomatoes, squash, eggplants and peppers in my refrigerator that needed to be consumed before they got bad. They were left over from the weekend before. We were expecting three more friends to join us for Sunday-lunch, but unfortunately they couldn't come because of sicknesses.

Since I hate the idea of throwing away food, especially raw materials, I turned to my little collection of cooking books (no, not Internet, I am quite traditional when it comes to searching for recipes/vocabulary/information; I first check my books/encyclopedias/dictionaries, only when I am not satisfied with what I found I consult the Internet) and found two very fitting recipes that smell of summer. These following recipes saved me from the trouble of thinking what to cook for two consecutive dinners.

The first one is a French dish, three vegetable tian. You need onions, garlic cloves, squash, eggplants, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese as the main ingredients. Peel and slice the onions into rings. Peel and crush the garlic cloves. Cook the onion and garlic in olive oil until the onions turn transparent. Wash the eggplants and squash, and slice them in ca. 4 mm thick slices. I cut the eggplants in their length and the squash in their width. Brush an oven tray with olive oil and place the eggplant and squash slices over, season with salt and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for about 8 minutes. I used my microwave oven instead, placing the slices on the crisp-function tray. After pouring some olive oil over them I cooked the vegetable slices using the crisp function for 9 minutes, by which time they were partially cooked. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in slices discarding the hard stem. Slice the mozzarella cheese into the same number of slices as you have of tomato. Take an oven dish (an oval/round one would be perfect) and spread the softened onion in a layer on the bottom (without greasing the dish before) followed by a layer of overlapping, partially cooked eggplant slices. Cover with a layer of overlapping and alternating cheese and tomato slices. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with chopped herbs (parsley, basil and oregano - optional). Top with a final, fairly loose layer of squash slices and lightly season again with salt and pepper. Cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 25 minutes. Remove the tian from the oven, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. Return the tian to the oven and cook for a further 20-30 minutes. You can serve it with nothing but crispy white bread.

The second dish is Italian, peperonata. I had eaten it a few times at my in-laws' house, but never prepared myself. Main ingredients are red and green peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and balsamic vinegar. I had one each of red, green and yellow peppers, so I used them all. Cut the peppers into quarters, deseed them and remove the fibres. Then cut them into big rectangular (2 cm x 3 cm ca.) pieces. Roughly dice the flesh of the fresh tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes since I had finished the fresh ones the day before while cooking the tian. Peel and finely slice the onions and garlic. Heat some olive oil in a pan and sweat the onions until they turn transparent. Add the peppers and garlic and sweat for 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and pour in about 4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I mixed 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar with 1 tbs of red wine vinegar. Season with salt, pepper (and a pinch of cayenne pepper if you wish) and sprinkle a pinch of sugar. I used about 2 teaspoons of sugar since I cannot tolerate the strong taste of vinegar. Simmer the peperonata, covered, for 30-40 minutes until the peppers are soft but still retain their shape. Sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves before serving. Peperonata can be served as a side dish to any kind of fish, meat or poultry, or you can serve it cold as a starter, which is the way I prefer serving it.

Buon appetito!