I love this pairing of wholesome vegetables with sweet tomato sauce and rich layers of cheese. There are echoes of lasagne flavours but with a prep time that is much shorter. You’ll find it very weeknight friendly. Enjoy alone or alongside a crisp salad.
Serves: 4
INGREDIENTS
1 medium orange kumara
200 grams portobello mushrooms
3 medium zucchini, ends trimmed
2¼ cups tomato passata sauce
250 grams ricotta cheese
2½ cups grated cheddar or edam cheese
handful fresh basil, roughly chopped
To garnish: fresh basil leaves, 4 zucchini slices, pumpkin seeds
30cm x 17cm ovenproof dish
You’ll need to use a mandoline to achieve the wafer thin vegetable slices necessary to make the dish work.
METHOD
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Use a mandoline to to slice the vegetables very thinly.
Start to layer the vegetables in an ovenproof dish, tiling them snugly together. After 3 layers, drizzle ⅓ of the tomato passata, dollop ⅓ of the ricotta and sprinkle with ⅓ of the grated cheese. Scatter with some of the fresh basil.
Repeat this process, tiling 3 layers of vegetables and adding ⅓ of the passata, ricotta and cheese. Place the remaining vegetable layers (leaving some sweet potato slices for the top). Drizzle the remaining tomato passata and dollop the remaining ricotta cheese. Tile a layer of sweet potato slices and then sprinkle the remaining grated cheese over the top. Garnish with additional fresh basil leaves and extra zucchini slices as desired.
Bake for 45–60 minutes until golden and the vegetable layers are tender. Leave to sit for 15 minutes before serving. I like to top with a good grind of black pepper and a handful of pumpkin seeds.
Kelly Gibney
Kelly Gibney is a food writer, stylist and photographer based in Auckland. For more wholefood recipe inspiration head over to her blog, bonnie delicious.
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