Wednesday, 17 June 2009

Recipe - Courgette and Tomato Bake

The adventures of a man and his organic veg box continues...

After stopping the carrot revolution the other day I turned my attention to the courgettes, that would be zucchinis for my North American and Australian friends, and the remaining onion.

Yet again I managed to end up cooking something that is fairly vegetarian. I guess that just how vegetarian depends on how militant you are about the cheese.

This turned out to taste very nice and could easily be used as a side dish to some tasty meat too. I cooked it in two separate Pyrex dishes but you could use one large dish just as well.

As a reference, the Pyrex dishes I used takes about 600 ml each.

Let's head over to the recipe part.

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
Olive oil
500g passata
4 small-ish tomatoes, sliced
2 courgettes, sliced
100g grated cheese, I used gruyere

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Start by sweating the garlic and onion in some olive oil in a pan. Once they are starting to soften add the passata and bring to a boil. Let this simmer for 10 - 15 minutes or until it starts to thicken up. Season to taste.

Divide the tomato mixture into the two dishes. Then make alternate layers of courgette and tomato with cheese between each layer. Finish off with a final layer of cheese.

Cover the dishes with tin foil and put them on a baking sheet (they do tend to splatter a wee bit) and into the oven for 20 minutes.

Take them out of the oven, remove the tin foil and then return them to the oven for another 15 - 20 minutes or until they looked nicely browned.



  1. gruyere är nog den absolut godaste osten jag vet. enormt lyckorus att få stoppa en bit av den i munnen!

  2. Lisa,

    Jomenvisst, gruyere ar definitivt uppe bland mina favoritostar ocksa.

    Den funkar ju sa bra smalt ocksa, perfekt i varma mackor etc.

    // Mike

  3. Looks like a good way to use a glut of courgettes or for a light supper. wondering what my veg box will bring next week :)

  4. Goodshoeday,

    Thanks! Yeah, that worked really nice. I brought one in for a colleague and she went and bought the ingredients for it the next day. ;)

    The other plan I had for the courgettes was along the lines of cutting them into strips and making some kind of pasta.

    I'm looking forward to seeing what you get, and what you make out of it.

    // Mike

  5. Like the simplicity of it and yet, it sounds so flavoursome! Can just see it, served with some warm ciabatta and a nice glass of wine!

  6. Ruth,

    Many thanks!

    Some times you don't need many ingredients to make something that has lots of flavour. This one ticked all the boxes for me.

    You're on the right track with the ciabatta and wine!

    // Mike

  7. I've just encountered this recipe while searching for things to do with my own Abel & Cole box - my first one comes next week and it's the first time I've orderd a veg box! I've enjoyed reading other recipes of yours now, so thanks.



// Mike