While cruising a local health food store a couple of months back, we spotted this casserole for sale in their deli counter display. At $10 a pound, it got my attention, but it looked great; we bought a piece, and the rest as they say was history. I now make this at least once a week. I have tried a number of other things in it, but the balance for flavor can't be altered much from what is here. Depending on how you test out on specific foods, here is what works well together. Note: I wash the vegetables, but I do not peel them other than the onion.

Ingredients:

medium eggplant, sliced 1/16" thick

2 medium or 1 large onion, sliced 1/16" thick

several zucchini or yellow summer squash, sliced 1/16" thick

2 -3 tbs fresh minced garlic (jar type works well)

up to 6 ox mozzarella cheese (optional)

Assorted bell peppers - green, red, yellow, ?

2 medium tomatoes (optional) sliced 1/16" thick

You can optionally add a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese to the top if your diet allows such.

The key to this cooking well and uniform taste is thin slicing the vegetables.

To prepare: Start with a pan big enough to feed however many people you need. To give an example, a 9" diameter dutch oven is sufficient for 5 or 6 servings, depending on how thick you make it. I usually end up somewhere between 2 1/2" - 3" thick before baking.

I start by greasing the bottom of the pan if not teflon coated.

Next I lay a complete covering of eggplant. This is followed by onion slices cut in half and broken apart. I want about 75- 80% coverage of the eggplant. I then add roughly a rounded tablespoon of minced garlic. If you are going to use some cheese, I would put a sprinkling here. Try to keep it under one ounce per layer.

On top of this I put a layer of sliced squash. If you choose to add tomatoes, I would next put a layer of them. At this point, repeat the process starting with the eggplant.

On the third and all subsequent layers I do not use garlic as according to my wife, it becomes too overpowering. I personally find it is impossible to have too much garlic, but I am outvoted on this and two layers is all that will happen.

Normally I quit at 4 full layers. I then take bell peppers, core them and split them. In the picture you will see some small yellow peppers. These are a sweet pepper we found at Sam's club and they taste great on this dish. We also use them in salads and on pizza.

We pop this in the oven covered at 425-450° F and cook from 1 to 1 1/2 hours. This is a trial and error thing depending on the pan and the type of covering. If I use my Dutch oven with cast iron lid, about an hour is sufficient. If I use a roasting pan (for a larger batch when serving guests) I cover it with tin foil and it takes 1 1/2 hours or slightly longer. The vegetables will cook down to roughly half their height. With the hard covered Dutch oven, the peppers will brown without removing the lid. With the tin foil, I need to remove it for the last 5 to 10 minutes.