Vegetable Gratin & Green Salad with Toasted Seeds - Recipe

The last few days the weather has been changing a lot, from very hot to cloudy and windy today. For that reason, I have been changing my food diet lately according to the weather. When it is warm outside, I go for a nice salad and when it is cold, I prefer something warm and rich in taste. To compensate for the cold weather today, I made a nice, warm and comforting vegetable gratin and a green side salad with toasted seeds. It was delicious and very tasty. Lately we have been trying to eat more vegetables and less meat. It has worked really well and I have a few salad recipes to share later on.

The vegetable gratin did take longer than I thought but was worth every single minute as it was so good. I am sure you can make it faster depending on what vegetables you use. In this case, I decided to precook the potatoes, paprika, aubergine and made my tomato sauce, hence it to took extra time to prepare. You can serve this gratin with a side salad, with a piece of steak or just on its own.

Serves: 5

Ingredients:

2 aubergine, sliced
1 courgette, sliced lengthwise
1 red paprika, sliced
1 red onion, roughly diced
5 big potatoes, sliced
1 mozzarella ball
60 g feta cheese
1 half jar tomato sauce
2 tbsp tomato pure
olive oil
 Spices: 1/2 tsp cumin, coriander, dried parsley, 7 spices mix, garlic powder

Method:

1- Begin with washing and slicing the aubergine, paprika and potatoes. Put the potatoes in a saucepan and fill it with boiled water and boil them until almost cooked through. Put the aubergine on a tray and sprinkle salt over and after few minutes dry the slices, with a kitchen towel, from the excess moist.

2- Dry fry the vegetables in a non stick frying pan. If needed, add 1,5 tbsp olive oil. I dry fried aubergines, onions and paprika.

3- Add the half jar of tomato sauce in the same non stick pan which was used for frying vegetables. Add the spices and 2 tbsp tomato pure. Mix well and add half glass of water and let it come to a boil. Let it simmer for 15 minutes or until you have a desired consistency.

4- In a oven proof dish, spread a layer of tomato sauce on the bottom, and start layering the vegetables.  Once first layer of vegetables are done, add more tomato sauce and the shredded mozzarella on top. Repeat the layering of vegetables and this time add the feta cheese.

5- Finish of with more feta cheese and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes in 190 C degrees.

5- Serve with a green salad with toasted seed such as, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seed.

Enjoy!