Home-stay Non Tian

Here is a tian.
A tian is a layered casserole.
Wait, maybe it's not: my tian does not look like this tian at all.
It turns out a tian is more gratin than casserole.
According to Larousse Gastronomique, a tian is an earthenware, ovenproof dish from Provence used to prepare all kinds of gratin dishes, which are also called tian.

I made this non tian while living at someone else's house, taking care of their pets and garden. These lovely absent people happened to have a cookbook I've been drooling over, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. My tian is a rough approximation of a recipe in Bittman's Bible, using ingredients I happened already to have: an enormous eggplant, a couple small zucchini, a can of plum tomatoes, lots of garlic, and a juicy local sweet onion... plus fresh thyme and oregano from the home-stay yard.

After salting the slices of eggplant for a long time (to sweat out the bitter juices), I assembled the layers.

I added more layers.

I baked it in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes. Twice, I interrupted the tian's slow-slow cooking to press the layers down in the pan. I completed the meal with pesto pasta.


There was a small dog staring at me while I ate, and a poison dart frog absolutely ignoring me. (I failed to photograph the cat, two ducks and two chickens). I did not share my meal with them. The dog might have liked it, but the frog is on a strict wingless fruit fly diet.