Meatless Monday: {GF} Zucchini au Gratin

There's something about French that makes things sound complicated and difficult.  Heads up: this recipe is neither.
This is my second time making this dish for Meatless Mondays this fall - as many good recipes & ideas as there are out there, this one was a real hit & the zucchini is still coming out of the garden on a regular basis - make hay while the sun shines!

This is a really easy dish to put together and has a really nice, simple, savoury flavour.  Today, I'm serving it alongside Caramelized Beet Soup.  {recipe to come soon, if it's as amazing as I hope it will be!}

A mandolin slicer takes all of the work out of this recipe, but please, for the love of your beautiful fingers, use the handguard when you slice the zucchini!! If you watched MasterChef this summer, you'll know what a mandolin can do to your fingers.

Janet over at Simply So Good shared a recipe for Zucchini Gratin that she learned in a french cooking class. She has gorgeous photos and great tips on cutting technique! Please check out her blog!

Speaking of blogs that you should visit, my friend Shannon is teaching Food & Nutrition for the second year in a row and, once again, her students are blogging their recipes. Some of these are awesome - you should definitely go check out what these kids are up to.

As always, I altered the recipe according to what I had on hand, and also according to our family's dietary requirements and preferences. I also added some chopped green onions on top because I happened to just pick them from the garden when getting the zucchini.

Here's my version:

Gluten Free Zucchini au Gratin
Ingredients:

• 2 small or 1 decent-sized zucchini
• 1 onion chopped finely (you can use a mandolin to do a quick job of this in 20 seconds)
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 2 cups whole milk 
• 1 cup Chex cereal (original), crushed
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup sharp cheese, shredded (I use old cheddar, that's what I have on hand. Original calls for parmesean)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp Greek or Italian seasoning
• 1 dash of hot sauce
• Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup uncooked (but rinsed) quinoa or rice (I've used both. I like that quinoa has more nutritious value, but the rice certainly makes a creamier dish.)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 & grease 6 cup baking dish.
2. Sautee onions over low heat in about 1 Tbsp olive oil. While onions are cooking, slice zucchini very thinly with mandolin. "Coin thin," as Janet says.
3. Add zucchini & garlic to onions, sautee for an additional 2 minutes, then set aside.
4. In a large bowl, combine 1 cup milk, crushed Chex, eggs, thyme, 1/2 cup cheese, splash of olive oil, salt, & pepper, and stir until combined.
5. Add zucchini mixture & quinoa. Stir and pour into prepared dish. Smooth the top, pour remaining 1 cup milk on top, then sprinkle with remaining cheese.
6. Bake 1 hour or until set & golden on top.