Middle East Zucchini Casserole

5 small zucchinis
evoo
2 T lemon juice
5 oz. soft, herb sheep's milk cheese
1 1/2 onions
2 cloves garlic
1 c sliced tomato

Saute onion in a little olive oil and then set aside. Slice zucchini lengthwise into thin strips. Toss with lemon juice and set aside. Slice tomatoes into thin slices. In a deep casserole dish, drizzle olive oil on bottom of pan (about 1 T) and add 1/3 of the zucchini, 1/3 of the tomato, onion, garlic and cheese (crumble it). Repeat for two more layers. Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top and cover and bake in 375 oven for 40 minutes.

I'm not sure what exactly the variety of cheese I was using is called.. it was made fresh at the Middle East grocery I went to earlier in the week. To be fair, it imparts a lot of the flavor to this recipe, as it was a salty and herbed soft cheese that melted nicely. I'll go back and do my homework and try to update the entry here with more specifics.

So it's tasty but by the time it was all done baking it was sitting in quite a bath of juices as the zucchini gave up quite a bit of water upon baking in addition to the generous olive oil. I transferred the casserole to another container with a slotted spoon and that got rid of most of the excess, but it still didn't cook together into a more or less solid form as I had imagined.

Good with fresh cracked black pepper on it and a chilled glass of Riesling.