Wegmans Mediterranean Harvest Gratin Needs Something Extra

For my third culinary adventure from the Wegmans Fall Menu Cookbook, I took another suggestion from Wegmans Regional Executive Chef Don Woods, and got to work on the Mediterranean Harvest Gratin.  This recipe includes squash and zucchini which are locally grown, and can be found on the Wegmans website, or on page 59 of the Fall Menu Cookbook.  The cost of the ingredients at Wegmans came to just under $23.  

I wasn't as impressed with the quality of the vegetables at the store as I was when I bought the produce for the Late Harvest Veggie Pasta and the Cauliflower Soup.  I had a little more difficulty this time finding some quality squash, zucchini, and eggplant; many of the vegetables didn't look or feel up to par. 

After I got some produce that seemed satisfactory, I started home and busied myself with chopping vegetables.  I noticed that this time around the cooking time that is mentioned in the recipe seemed to include the time it took to cut the veggies.  This was not the case when I made the Late Harvest Veggie Pasta; that meal took longer to make than it was supposed to because it didn't take into account the prep work for the recipe, but the Mediterranean Harvest Gratin took about as long as the cookbook said it would.  This was a very easy recipe to make, and once the veggies are sliced up, there's really very little work that needs to be done.  It's really just a matter of arranging the casserole, and topping it with the tomato sauce, letting it bake a while, and then spreading the ricotta on top.  That's pretty much all there is to it.

I used more tomato sauce and cheese than the recipe called for because I was going for a sort of eggplant parmesan effect.  I apparently failed at this, because when I invited my mom to try some of it, she said that she likes eggplant parmesan better.  I, however, decided not to take this as a personal assault on my cooking abilities, and instead tried to dig to the bottom of this issue.  Why did she like eggplant parmesan better?  

We both finally agreed that this recipe was just missing something.  It's a good recipe, and I thought that adding more sauce and cheese had given it more taste, but I feel like this recipe could still use something extra.  My mom and I kicked around some ideas and we decided that this recipe could be made better either by adding another cheese, like mozzarella or grated parmesan, or by adding more spices to it, like oregano.  I would say that this is a good recipe that could simply be made by better by a couple extra additions.  My one complaint was that the eggplant seemed to come out very dry, and I don't know if that was my fault or the recipe's, but the squash and zucchini came out really well.