Recipe: baked breaded squash with tomato sauce

I've done so little cooking recently, partially due to being busy and partially due to a lack of energy, but I'm finally making time for it again. What I've been meaning to do for some time is start experimenting more, and writing my own recipes.

When my parents visited this weekend, my dad gave me two great big yellow squash that he grew in his garden. In order to make use of them, I decided tonight to make one of the very first recipes I ever devised myself, a variant on eggplant parmesan that has neither eggplant nor parmesan. For just me, I decided to use just one of the yellow squash.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. I sliced up the squash, then filled three pie plates with breading ingredients-- one with pan searing flour, one with two raw beaten eggs, and one with panko. I ran the squash coins through them one after the other and laid them on a wire rack. Then I heated up some olive oil in my ten-inch saute pan. I think I use this piece of cookware more than any other I own, so if you're going to invest in any decent pan, make it this one. I used it now to brown the breaded coins over medium-high heat. My mom recommended this combination of the flour, egg, and panko because it makes sure the breading will stick to the squash rather than come off in the pan. I remember the first time I put this recipe together, it all came off and I had to scoop it all out with a spatula. If you've got the heat right, it should take about two minutes per side to properly brown the pieces.

After browning them, I drained them for a moment back on the wire rack. Then I took the pie plate with the few remaining panko crumbs and laid the largest slices across the bottom of it.

Then I covered it with a layer of tomato sauce. Ideally you'd make your own, but the jarred stuff is fine, and I had some left over in the fridge.

Lay the next layer of eggplant coins over it and cover that too with sauce. It would also be good to include cheese-- I used mozzarella the first time, but parmesan or something would work too --but I'm lactose intolerant, and I don't want the calories anyway, so I left it out.

Lastly, you put the whole thing into the 375-degree oven for thirty minutes for the squash to get soft and roasty. See, it's kind of like eggplant parmesan... except, as I said, no eggplant and no parmesan. Tasty, vegetarian, fairly easy even though you end up messing a lot of dishes, and I used only things I already had in my pantry and fridge to make it.