Having trouble getting your kids to eat veggies? Are you looking for a way to use up the vegetables in your fridge? Well, I have a recipe for you! Saucy, cheesy vegetable dish is full of cheese, sauce, sausage and veggies. I’m sure you’ll love this one!
I am not really sure what to call this dish, actually. Saucy, cheesy vegetable dish is a bit of a ratatouille crossed with lasagna. You can add many things to it once the structure is there to hold any substitutions.
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It all started with a friend bringing me some eggplant and basil. Yum! Ratatouille would have been on the menu, if I hadn’t forgot the zucchini at the grocery store. Man! Where is my head lately, anyway? So, I thought of maybe lasagna? Oops. No lasagna noodles, either. So, what to make? I actually didn’t really know how this dish was going to turn out until it was finished and we were eating it. And yum. IT WAS GOOD. What started as a bit of a failure, turned into a recipe that was requested unanimously by my family.
Peppers and eggplant. Onions and cheese. Italian sausage, tomato sauce and cream cheese. Oh, my!
So…I’ll share it with you. The only thing that is a little finicky is preparing and cooking the eggplant first. Slice the eggplant about a 1/4 ” thick, and place in a colander in your sink. Sprinkle with salt and combine. Let is sit for maybe thirty minutes. This drains all the excess liquid from the eggplant, so it’s nicer to fry. Fry the eggplant in hot olive oil on both sides until lightly browned. This prepares it for the saucy, cheesy vegetable dish!
It’s really a simple meal and we ate it with french bread. I’ll be posting a homemade french bread recipe here very soon. A salad would be delicious with this dish, too. Maybe we’ll have one with the leftovers tonight. Here’s the recipe below.
Saucy, Cheesy Vegetable Dish
Full of vegetables, basil and a delicious creamy sauce, this recipe is perfect for using up fresh summer vegetables.
Ingredients
- 1 lb mild Italian sausage casing taken off, and scramble-fried
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 24 oz tomato sauce
- 8 oz block of cream cheese cut into cubes
- 2 medium eggplants sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 2 red peppers sliced thinly
- 1 large bunch fresh basil chopped finely
- 1 cup shredded cheese
Instructions
- Place sliced eggplant in a colander in the sink. Sprinkle salt on eggplant and combine with your hands.
- Leave eggplant to weep for thirty minutes.
- Rinse salt off well, and pat eggplant dry.
- Heat cast iron pan with olive oil, and begin frying eggplant until nicely browned on each side.
- Take casing off of sausage, and scramble-fry until half cooked.
- Add onion, and continue cooking until both are well-done.
- Add tomato sauce and heat through.
- Add cream cheese cubes and stir until melted.
- Set aside.
- When eggplant is completely cooked, fry peppers in the same skillet until tender.
- Layer in a 10 by 15 pan. Sauce on the bottom, eggplant slices, then peppers and sprinkle cheese on top.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
- Enjoy!
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