Vegetables Napoleon

Nothing says summer time like fresh vegetables all bright and full of color and flavor! Some of my friends have been lucky enough to have amazing gardens (ahh hemm Haley!) and I am so jealous! The heat has killed nearly everything I planted even the flowers! You know it is bad when you leave the house at 7am for work and it is already 81 degrees! Well at least the grocery store has had some good produce even if my green thumb has sun burnt to a golden brown!

So I decided to make  nice light dinner of garlic mozzarella chicken baked potato and vegetables napoleon!
Making vegetables napoleon is very easy. I decided to make mine with a combination of eggplant, zucchini, summer squash and roasted red bell peppers. I think next time I am going to omit the eggplant and use portabello mushrooms instead!

Vegetables Napoleon
Egg Plat
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Red Bell Peppers (roasted)
Mozzarella cheese
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

First thing you need is roasted red bell peppers. I used the method of roasting them on my gas stove top. You want to roast them until they are blackened. Move them to  a plate to cool.

while they cool place a towel over them so that they continue to roast and keep in all that flavor. Once they are cool to the touch you want to remove all the blacked parts and throw it away. You do not want to rinse them or you will lose all that sweetness that the pepper gets. Just peel it off with your finger tips and it will come off easily. Then slice them up removing the seeds and set to the side.

Now what you want to do is slice the vegetables up and place them in a large bowl. Sprinkle with sat and pepper to taste (you can add any other seasonings that you prefer to bring out the flavor of the vegetables) drizzle some EVOO over the vegetables and until they are all coated with spices and the oil. If you use egg plant it can tend to be thirsty and soak up the oil so be sure the rest of vegetables are well coated and use a little extra if need be.


Take your seasoned veggies to the grill and grill for approx 3 to 4 minutes per side. Be sure to spray your grill with some cooking spray to ensure that they do not stick to the grill. What you want is the grill marks on the vegetables. It is ok if they are not all the way cooked as you will be finishing them in the oven. Once they are done remove them from the grill take out your mozzarella cheese and get your bell peppers. On a baking sheet you want to layer the vegetables. and in between some of the layers of eggplant, squash, zucchini and peppers place a little bit of cheese. Not too much but enough to bring it all together and add some flavor.


Once you have them all stacked and ready to go you can drizzle a little EVOO on top of them and bake at 350 for 5 to 10 minutes until your cheese is melty and slightly browned.


Plate and serve!


I definitely think these would be great with portabello mushrooms and I will definitely be making these again!

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Broccoli Gratin

OK people! So if any of you decided to try out the Croque Monsieur then you are probably wondering "dear lord what am I going to do with all this bechamel sauce?!" Well I am here to tell you exactly what I think you should do with it! You need to make this broccoli gratin! You will definitely be glad that you did!

Broccoli Gratin
2 cups bechamel sauce
1.5 lbs broccoli
8oz sharp cheddar cheese (the better quality the cheese the better the taste!)
Plain bread crumbs for dusting
Parmesan cheese (approx 1/2 cup, you are just using it to sprinkle on)

First things first, take your cheese out of the fridge an cut it into small cubes. You can grate it if you want but if you don't want to risk losing or knuckle or wasting all that time then cutting it into small cubes will work just as well! Once you get it all cut up nice and small set it off to the side! If it is room temp it will melt easier into your sauce. Go ahead and preheat your oven to 400 and start to boil some water on the stove. Once you get your broccoli all cut up so you only have the florets (just the tops.) Throw a little bit of salt in the water. Once the sauce comes to a boil throw in your broccoli and set your timer for 2.5 minutes 3 maximum. Trust me on this. You just want the broccoli to get a nice dark green. After three minutes pull it out of the water and drain well. In a sauce pan on the stove heat up your 2 cups of bechamel sauce (if you need the recipe click here) continuing to stir it so you do not burn it. Once your sauce is nice and hot put in the cheese that you cubed. Remove it from the heat and continue to stir until all the cheese melts into your sauce. Once the cheese is all melted into the sauce place your broccoli in a bowl and pour the sauce over the broccoli and coat it all. Once it is all coated pour it into a casserole dish. Dust the top with bread crumbs and then sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until it looks like this...

I had set out some venison steaks (deer meat that we have from the Hubby's fabulous hunting adventures last winter) and the plan was to have mashed potatoes and broccoli gratin, however, every potato I cut into was black in the middle! And I had just bought them! So I was already in the middle of dinner I decided to improvise with a box of broccoli rice! It turned out so yummy anyway!

It went wonderful with a nice Merlot!

How did I not notice that grain of rice on the steak ruining this shot! LOL Oh well! This is a great dish to make to use the rest of your bechamel sauce and a great change from just plain broccoli! MMM MMM good!!

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