Abruzzo Sliced Vegetable Casserole

I just love this recipe. It's easy and tastes so good. It's a great side dish and compliments so many meals.

Since it's just me and my wife, we end up with a good amount of leftovers regularly from the meals I make. And as usual, we had a lot of this casserole. I know most people struggle with leftovers so here are a couple of suggestions.

Leftover casserole with chard

I used a medium bunch of chard for this. Wash and cut out the large stems from the chard and roughly chop the leaves. Heat 1 T olive oil in a pan and add a healthy portion of the casserole. Let it fry for a few minutes till the potatoes start to stick and add the chard. It will cook down. Sauté and stir till the potatoes have the desired crispyness/burnt edges.

Leftover casserole with leftover pasta

The next night we still had a decent portion left of the casserole but not enough to serve by itself for multiple people. So this time I added to it and mixed in some leftover pasta (ziti with red sauce). For me the best way to make leftovers great is to add new things to them. For this version, I added a potato, 2 tomatoes, a little onion and some garlic. I also added some dried thyme. These are all ingredients in the original recipe and gave the remaining casserole some new punch. To help the new ingredients blend I cooked them first, then added the casserole. The new potatoes are always hard to blend so I put them in a microwave safe bowl just covered with water and cook them in the microwave for 5-7 minutes prior to sautéing them. Then by mixing in the leftover pasta and frying everything in a pan, the end dish had a familiar but still new texture.

Abruzzo Sliced Vegetable Casserole

olive oil
1/2 lb peeled potatoes - sliced 1/4 inch
1 yellow bell pepper - thinly sliced
1 small red onion - thinly sliced
1/2 lb roma tomatoes - sliced 1/4 inch
2 small zucchini - sliced 1/4 inch
3-5 garlic cloves minced
1 t thyme
3 T parmesan cheese

Preheat oven 400 degrees
Coat a 9-inch baking dish with olive oil.
Spread potatoes evenly drizzle very lightly with oil and salt and pepper to taste.

In a bowl, combine the onions, bell pepper, garlic, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Spread 2/3 of the mixture over the potatoes and drizzle very lightly with oil.

Top with the tomatoes and zucchini, salt and pepper to taste and drizzle very lightly with oil. Spread the remaining onion/pepper mixture and cover with parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes.
Uncover, raise temperature to 425 and cook for another 20 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes prior to serving.