Baked Zucchini with Tuna and Tomato Sauce

The past few days have been like a rollercoaster ride in the house. A few weeks ago, my niece took the Bac, which is a French exam for students who are done with the Lycee and want to pursue their education to the Fac or Université. It's a system which I am not quite familiar with as the Philippines follows more or less the American schooling system. Anyways, this was MO's second time to take the exam as she failed last year and had to take another year at the Lycee. When the first results came out on July 6, 2012 we found out she had failed and had to go to the Rattrapage to try her second chance with 30 points to catch up. We were devastated but kept our hopes up. A student can go to the Rattrapage if she/he lacks less than 80 points, I believe. Yesterday was Rattrapage Day. At 10AM, the results were posted in the internet and I am happy to announce the good news, she got it! What a relief!

On another note, MO started her summer job today. As much as I wanted to call her and tell her the good news, I simply could not do it during her working hours. So I prepared lunch for the two of us and waited until she came home at 1PM. You can only imagine how happy she was!

We lunched on a dish which I found through the French application, Marmiton. It is a great site to find recipes! I haven't cooked a lot of Zucchini before, so I was short of ways of making it. I stumbled on a recipe which combined a Creamy Tomato Sauce, Zucchini, and Tuna. And the end result turned out pretty good! I never would have imagined that Zucchini and Tuna would go so great together.

I started with slicing the Zucchini thinly using a mandoline. I just love this kitchen tool! Just be careful with your fingers though! Since, this was a baked dish, I decided to sautee the Zucchini first in a slightly oiled pan and sprinkled salt on the vegetable. Zucchini releases a lot of water and I didn't want my baked dish to be watery. As this was cooking in the pan, I combined a bottle of 20cl of cream and a small 20 grams can of tomato paste, salt, pepper, and dried basil. I opened a can of tuna, drained it, and set aside. Next up, was the layering of the dish in a baking dish. So on the baking dish, I layered it first with the Zucchini, then the tuna, and the tomato-cream mixture. I did this twice and on the second time, I spread grated cheese on top and a little salt and pepper. This was transferred in a pre-heated oven (150 degrees celsius) and baked at the same temperature for 45-60 minutes.